Accuracy of infrared thermography evaluation in burn wound healing: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Accurate assessment of burn depth and burn wound healing potential is essential to determine early treatments. Infrared thermography (IRT) is a non-invasive and objective tool to do this. This systematic review evaluated the accuracy of IRT to determine burn wound healing potential. METHOD: This systematic review and meta-analysis used MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PEDro, DiTA and CENTRAL databases. IRT data were extracted from primary studies and categorised into four cells (i.e., true positives, false positives, true negatives and false negatives). Subgroup analysis was performed according to methods used to capture thermal images. RESULTS: The search strategy identified 2727 publications; however, 15 articles were selected for review and 11 for meta-analysis. In our meta-analysis, the accuracy of IRT was 84.8% (63% sensitivity and 81.9% specificity). CONCLUSION: IRT is a moderately accurate tool to identify burn depth and healing potential. Thus, IRT should be used carefully for evaluating burn wounds.

Accuracy of infrared thermography in detecting tendinopathy: A systematic review with meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the literature on diagnosis of tendinopathy using infrared thermography (IT). METHODS: This is a systematic review that followed the recommendations of PRISMA. The databases Medline, PEDro, SciELO, Embase, CENTRAL, and CINAHL were searched from inception up to December 2021. Two reviewers independently selected studies that investigated the use of IT to identify tendinopathy. The risk of bias of the included studies was assessed with QUADAS-2 tool. Data synthesis was performed through the analysis of sensitivity, specificity, summary ROC curve (SROC), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR). RESULTS: Seven studies were included in the meta-analyses, which showed that the IT has an overall sensitivity of 72%, specificity of 95%, DOR of 75.94, and SROC of 97%. Sensitivity analysis indicated that IT showed sensitivity of 93% and 63%, specificity of 97% and 100%, and DOR of 221.38 and 60.71 for lateral epicondylitis and shoulder tendinopathy, respectively. CONCLUSION: The IT showed adequate accuracy to detect tendon injuries, with high specificity in the evaluation of lateral epicondylitis and shoulder tendinopathy.

Electrolipolysis associated with aerobic activity does not reduce subcutaneous adipose tissue of the abdominal region of young women: A randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the effects of electrolysis, through a medium frequency current, associated to aerobic physical activity in the body composition of young women. METHODS: The study was composed of 34 sedentary women (24.35 ± 4.43 years, 71.30 ± 7.08 kg, 1.61 ± 0.06 m, 27.31 ± 1.67 kg/m2) which were evaluated for their anthropometric measures and body composition. The volunteers were randomly assigned to two group: Electrolyphysis plus Aerobic Exercise (gEEA): 17 volunteers were submitted to the application, for 60 min , of the Aussie current, followed by aerobic physical activity (77% of HRmax) on the trampoline for 40 min, through video-lessons of Jump; and Aerobic Exercise group (gEA): 17 volunteers performed only physical activity following the same parameters mentioned above. Each group performed its protocols twice weekly, for 5 weeks, totaling 10 sessions. For the data analysis, measures repeated ANOVA was performed to compare the means of the variables analyzed before and after the treatment protocols using the SPSS - 21.0 software, adopting a p ≤ 0.05. RESULTS: Although gEEA decreased suprailiac skinfold (p = 0.04), abdominal skinfold (p = 0.03) and circumference at umbilical scar (p = 0.02) in an intragroup analysis, these means differences in anthropometric measures were not important between-groups (p > 0.05). Furthermore, there were no effect of treatment on body composition (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: To this studied condition, our results suggested that application of medium frequency electrolysis did not enhance the losses on anthropometric measures and body composition.