Simple Summary Infrared thermography is a tool that measures changes in the surface temperature of the skin and has been used in companion animals to determine their health state and to diagnose inflammatory processes, neoplasia, pain, or neuropathies. Body regions such as the face, body, or hind/forelimbs are commonly used for thermography in dogs and cats. However, since there is disagreement about the differences in temperature recorded using this tool, this article analyzes the usefulness of IRT in companion animals (pets) as a complementary diagnostic method for evaluating thermal and circulatory changes. It analyzes the recent scientific evidence on the use of facial, body, and appendicular thermal windows in dogs and cats under different clinical conditions. Abstract Infrared thermography (IRT) has been proposed as a method for clinical research to detect local inflammatory processes, wounds, neoplasms, pain, and neuropathies. However, evidence of the effectiveness of the thermal windows used in dogs and cats is discrepant. This review aims to analyze and discuss the usefulness of IRT in diverse body regions in household animals (pets) related to recent scientific evidence on the use of the facial, body, and appendicular thermal windows. IRT is a diagnostic method that evaluates thermal and circulatory changes under different clinical conditions. For the face, structures such as the lacrimal caruncle, ocular area, and pinna are sensitive to assessments of stress degrees, but only the ocular window has been validated in felines. The usefulness of body and appendicular thermal windows has not been conclusively demonstrated because evidence indicates that biological and environmental factors may strongly influence thermal responses in those body regions. The above has led to proposals to evaluate specific muscles that receive high circulation, such as the biceps femoris and gracilis. The neck area, perivulvar, and perianal regions may also prove to be useful thermal windows, but their degree of statistical reliability must be established. In conclusion, IRT is a non-invasive technique that can be used to diagnose inflammatory and neoplastic conditions early. However, additional research is required to establish the sensitivity and specificity of these thermal windows and validate their clinical use in dogs and cats.

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Thermal and Circulatory Changes in Diverse Body Regions in Dogs and Cats Evaluated by Infrared Thermography


 Infrared thermography (IRT) is a tool that has been studied extensively in the experimental medical field as a method for assessing surface thermal responses under various conditions. These may involve local inflammatory processes resulting from surgical procedures, wounds, neoplasms, pathologies, painful events, or stressful states in animals. IRT measures changes in blood flow in surface blood capillaries and the resulting heat radiation. In the clinical field, thermography has been used as a support method for detecting painful conditions. However, some guidelines indicate that it could be applied for assessing and monitoring animals in rehabilitation to quantify objectively possible improvements in their quality of life. Similarly, it has been observed that IRT makes it possible to assess the degree of circulation in dermal tissue, suggesting that it could be used to determine the degree of damage in traumatized tissue in cases of thromboembolic diseases and burns. This would be useful to distinguish between damaged and healthy tissue and thus determine the optimal therapy for burn patients. This review aims to analyze scientific evidence on the clinical applications of IRT for detecting diseases and assessing painful conditions. A literature search on different databases was performed to recover articles related to the application of IRT as a complementary diagnostic tool, as well as its potential for assisting in rehabilitation, monitoring wounds, and evaluating body temperature in domestic animals.

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Clinical usefulness of infrared thermography to detect sick animals: frequent and current cases

Simple Summary Newborn puppies have great difficulty achieving a stable temperature, and it has been seen that this is influenced by the weight of the mother. In the present study, the temperature of the puppies was evaluated in eight different areas of the body and at seven different times after birth. It is concluded that the weight of the mothers significantly influences the thermoregulatory capacity of the puppies and that the areas where the lowest puppies’ temperatures were recorded were the thoracic and pelvic limbs, and the highest were the abdominal, thoracic, nasal, and upper left palpebral, especially when newborns dry and at 24 h after birth. Abstract The thermal stability of newborns is an essential parameter that can be recorded to evaluate neonatal care. Knowing the thermal windows to evaluate and maintain a constant temperature helps significantly reduce neonatal mortality. This study aimed to assess the superficial temperature alterations in the distinct thermal windows of puppies with mothers of diverse weights and their repercussions. We evaluated the superficial temperature using infrared thermography at eight thermal windows and seven different times: when wet due to the fetal fluid immediately after birth until 24 h of life in newborn puppies from bitches divided into four bodyweight groups. The results revealed a positive correlation between the dam’s weight and the ability to achieve thermostability in the newborn puppies in all the evaluated thermal windows. The time effect showed the lowest temperatures when the puppies were still wet, a gradual increase, and the highest temperature at 24 h after birth. The thermal windows with the highest temperatures were abdominal, thoracic, nasal, and upper left palpebral, and those with the lowest were the thoracic limb brachial biceps, thoracic limb elbow, metacarpal, and femoral pelvic limb. A significant increase in the temperatures in the thermal windows of the abdominal, thoracic, and upper left palpebral immediately after ingesting colostrum was observed. The weight of the dams is an important factor that positively intervenes in the thermoregulatory capacity of the puppies, especially when newborns are dry and have been passed 24 h after birth.

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Relation between the Dam’s Weight on Superficial Temperature of Her Puppies at Different Stages of the Post-Partum

La termografia es un metodo de diagnostico que se basa en la captacion de las radiaciones infrarrojas que emiten y reflejan los cuerpos, y que son proporcionales a la temperatura superficial. Utilizando una camara termica estas radiaciones se traducen en imagenes digitales que se pueden interpretar en funcion de una escala de colores. Mediante las imagenes termograficas se localizan lesiones que afectan a dermis y epidermis, pudiendolas delimitar con gran precision. Este metodo permite hacer un facil diagnostico de cualquier patologia relacionada con cambios de temperatura. Se emplea esta tecnica en el estudio de dos casos clinicos con el fin de comprobar el potencial de la tecnica como diagnostico complementario de tumores como el fibrosarcoma felino inducido por vacunacion.

Diagnóstico de fibrosarcoma felino por imagen termográfica

Applicability of thermography for cancer diagnosis in small animals.

ObjectivesThis study set out to determine the average temperature of skin and soft tissue tumors in cats using infrared thermography and to investigate correlations between thermographic findings a...

Andressa Gianotti Campos Nitrini

Papers

Thermographic assessment of skin and soft tissue tumors in cats.