Thermography in systemic sclerosis patients and other rheumatic diseases: Diagnosis, disease activity assessment, and therapeutic monitoring

Thermal sensitization of acupoints in patients with knee osteoarthritis: A cross-sectional case-control study

OBJECTIVE

Varied acupoint selections represent a potential cause of the uncertainty surrounding the efficacy of acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis (OA). Skin temperature, a guiding factor for acupoint selection, may help to address this issue. This study explored thermal sensitization of acupoints used for the treatment of knee OA.

METHODS

This cross-sectional case-control study enrolled cases aged 45-75 years with symptomatic knee OA and age- and gender-matched non-knee OA controls in a 1:1 ratio. All participants underwent infrared thermographic imaging. The primary outcome was the relative skin temperature of acupoint (STA), and the secondary outcome was the absolute STA of 11 acupoints. The z test was used to compare the relative and absolute STAs between the groups. Principal component analysis was used to extract the common factors (CFs, acupoint cluster) in the STAs. A general linear model was used to identify factors affecting the STA in the knee OA cases. For the group comparisons of relative STA, P < 0.0045 (adjusted for 11 acupoints through Bonferroni correction) was considered to indicate statistical significance. For other analyses, P < 0.05 was used as the threshold for statistical significance.

RESULTS

The analysis included 308 participants, consisting of 151 cases (mean age: [64.58 ± 6.67] years; male: 25.83%; mean body mass index: [25.70 ± 3.16] kg/m2) and 157 controls (mean age: [63.37 ± 5.96] years; male: 26.11%; mean body mass index: [24.47 ± 2.84] kg/m2). The relative STAs of ST34 (P = 0.0001), EX-LE2 (P < 0.0001), EX-LE5 (P = 0.0006), SP10 (P < 0.0001), BL40 (P = 0.0012) and GB39 (P = 0.0037) were higher in the knee OA group. No difference was found in the STAs of ST35, ST36, SP9, GB33 and GB34. Four CFs were identified for relative STA in both groups. The acupoints within each CF were consistent between the groups. The mean values of the relative STAs across each CF were higher in the knee OA group. In the knee OA cases, no factors were observed to affect the relative STA, while age and gender were found to affect the absolute STA.

CONCLUSION

Among patients with knee OA, thermal sensitization occurs in the acupoints of the lower extremity, exhibiting localized and regional thermal consistencies. The thermally sensitized acupoints that we identified in this study, ST34, SP10, EX-LE2, EX-LE5, GB39 and BL40, may be good choices for the acupuncture treatment of knee OA. Please cite this article as: Tu JF, Wang XZ, Yan SY, Wang YR, Yang JW, Shi GX, Zhang WZ, Jing LN, Yang LS, Liu DH, Wang LQ, Mi BH. Thermal sensitization of acupoints in patients with knee osteoarthritis: A cross-sectional case-control study. J Integr Med. 2025; Epub ahead of print.

Vascular, Soft Tissue, and Musculoskeletal Imaging in Systemic Sclerosis

This review examines the role of various imaging techniques in assessing vascular and musculoskeletal manifestations in Systemic Sclerosis (SSc). Imaging modalities, such as thermography, capillaroscopy, ultrasound, optical coherence tomography, laser speckle contrast analysis, radiography, computed tomography, and MRI, offer valuable insights into SSc-related complications. Findings suggest that these techniques aid in diagnosing conditions like Raynaud phenomenon, digital ulcers, calcinosis, acro-osteolysis, and hand contractures. However, each modality has its advantages and limitations, necessitating a multimodal approach for comprehensive evaluation and accurate diagnosis of SSc-related manifestations.

The role of thermography in assessment of wounds. A scoping review

Assessment of wounds based on visual appearance has poor inter- and intra-rater reliability and it is difficult to differentiate between inflammation and infection. Thermography is a user-friendly quantitative image technique that collects the skin surface temperature pattern of the wound area and immediately visualizes the temperatures as a rainbow coloured diagram. The aim of this scoping review is to map and summarize the existing evidence on how thermography has been used to assess signs of inflammation in humans and animals with surgical or traumatic wounds. The method follows the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. The databases searched were PubMed, Embase, CINAHL and Cochrane Library. 3798 sources were identified, 2666 were screened on title and abstract, 99 on full text and 19 studies were included for review. We found that the literature is diverse and originates from a variety of scientific fields. Thermography has been used to detect and predict inflammation and infection in surgical wounds. Grading systems based on the visual appearance correlate to temperature patterns detected with thermography. The general tendency is that thermography detects the temperature in a wound with inflammation to be warmer than a reference area or the same skin area before surgery. In a surgical wound the temperature is elevated 1-2 weeks after surgery due to natural physiological inflammation that induces healing, after 2 weeks the temperature of the wound area slowly and steady decreases to baseline over 1-3 months. If a secondary temperature peak happens during the healing phase of a surgical wound, it is likely that infection has occurred. Modern handheld thermographic cameras might be a promising tool for the clinician to quickly quantify the temperature pattern of surgical wounds to distinguish between inflammation and infection. However, firm evidence supporting infection thermography surveillance of surgical wounds as a technique is missing.

Clinical trial outcomes for SLE: what we have and what we need

The paradigm of drug approval in SLE currently relies on successful large phase III randomised controlled trials and a set of primary, secondary and additional end points. Taken together, these outcomes offer a nuanced understanding of the efficacy and safety of the investigational agent. In this review, we thoroughly examine the main outcomes used in SLE trials and highlight unmet requirements as well as potential venues for future trial design in SLE. Disease activity indices can be broadly categorised into global-specific and organ-specific indices, in particular for skin, joints and kidneys, but there is no universal consensus about their use in clinical trials. Because each of these instruments has its own intrinsic strengths and weaknesses, the assessment of treatment response has progressed from relying solely on one individual disease activity index to using composite responder definitions. Those are typically measured from the trial baseline to the end point assessment date and may be combined with the need to taper and maintain glucocorticoids (GCs) within prespecified ranges. Remission and low disease activity are two critical states in the perspective of 'Treat-to-Target' trials, but are not fully recognised by regulators. While significant progress has been made in clinical trial outcomes for SLE, there is a clear need for continued innovation. Addressing these challenges will require collaboration between researchers, clinicians, patients as well as with regulatory agencies to refine existing outcome measures, incorporate meaningful and ethnically diverse patient perspectives, foster relevant digital opportunities and explore new therapeutic avenues, including early use of investigational agents. By doing so, we can advance our ability to manage SLE effectively and safely and improve the lives of those living with this complex and impactful autoimmune disease.

Raynaud phenomenon and microvasculopathy in systemic sclerosis: multi-modality imaging for diagnosis and evaluation

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

To describe the clinical significance of and the diagnostic approach to Raynaud phenomenon (RP) in the peripheral extremities and the heart.

RECENT FINDINGS

Nailfold capillaroscopy has recently been standardized in an expert consensus paper. Abnormal capillaroscopy in combination with specific autoantibody profiles and clinical signs are highly predictive of progression of RP to systemic sclerosis (SSc). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can also perform tissue characterization of both the extremities and the heart. Microvascular wall abnormalities detected using nailfold capillaroscopy in patients with SSc may lead to deposition of erythrocyte-derived iron, due to microhemorrhages, which may predispose to fibrosis. MRI can assess the presence of iron using T2∗ measurements.

SUMMARY

RP is a hallmark of the microvasculopathy in SSc and can affect both the peripheral extremities and the heart. Nailfold capillaroscopy is the current gold standard for the evaluation of the peripheral microvasculature. Other imaging modalities include thermography, laser Doppler-derived methods, 99m Tc-pertechnetate hand perfusion scintigraphy, power Doppler ultrasonography, dynamic optical coherence tomography, MRI, and photoacoustic imaging, but these are currently not widely used. Cardiac RP can be investigated with positron emission tomography or cardiovascular magnetic resonance, with the latter offering the additional possibility of tissue characterization and iron content quantification secondary to microhemorrhages.

Use of infrared thermography in medical diagnostics: a scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION

Thermography offers a non-invasive radiation-free methodology for diagnostic imaging and temperature measurement, but the extent of the current application is unclear, as is the level of evidence for each use case. Moreover, population-based thermographic reference values for diagnostic purposes are nearly unknown. The aim of this scoping review is to identify patient populations and diseases in which thermography is applied, cataloguing of technical and environmental modalities, investigation of the existence of specific reference data and finally exploration of gaps and future tasks.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and CENTRAL, Embase, Web of Science and OpenGrey are to be searched using pretested suitable search strategies, with no language restriction, but abstracts should be available in English or German and articles should not have been published before 2000. This limited time frame is due to the rapid technological progress, which makes it necessary to exclude reports based on outdated technology. The literature found will be selected on the basis of previously defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Subsequently, relevant data will be extracted from the included references into a predesigned table. The selection and extraction process will be conducted by two researchers independently. The report of the results will be according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. The entire review process will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute approach. The scoping review protocol is registered at the Open Science Framework.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethical approval is not required for this work, but ethical medicine also obliges us to carefully consider diagnostic alternatives and compare them with current standards. The dissemination of the results will take place in a variety of ways. First and foremost through publication in an open access journal, but also through conference proceedings. In addition, this scoping review will serve to open up new research foci with regard to thermography.

Autoimmunity in 2019

Based on the PubMed data, we have been performing a yearly evaluation of the publications related to autoimmune diseases and immunology to ascertain the relative weight of the former in the scientific literature. It is particularly intriguing to observe that despite the numerous new avenues of immune-related mechanisms, such as cancer immunotherapy, the proportion of immunology manuscripts related to autoimmunity continues to increase and has been approaching 20% in 2019. As in the previous 13 years, we performed an arbitrary selection of the peer-reviewed articles published by the major dedicated Journals and discussed the common themes which continue to outnumber peculiarites in autoimmune diseases. The investigated areas included systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), autoantibodies (autoAbs), and common therapeutic avenues and novel pathogenic mechanisms for autoimmune conditions. Some examples include new pathogenetic evidence which is well represented by IL21 or P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) in SLE or the application of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), mass cytometry, bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), and flow cytometry for the analysis of different cellular populations in RA. Cumulatively and of interest to the clinicians, a large number of findings continue to underline the importance of a strict relationship between basic and clinical science to define new pathogenetic and therapeutic developments. The therapeutic pipeline in autoimmunity continues to grow and maintain a constant flow of new molecules, as well illustrated in RA and PsA, and this is most certainly derived from the new basic evidence and the high-throughput tools applied to autoimmune diseases.

Human mesenchymal stem cells for the management of systemic sclerosis. Systematic review

INTRODUCTION

Sistemic Sclerosis (SSc) is a heterogeneous autoimmune disease with a high rate of progression and therapeutic failure, and treatment is a challenge, new therapeutic proposals being needed, being mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) considered as alternative therapy for SSc for its immunomodulatory capacity. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of human MSC (hMSC) in patients with SSc through a systematic literature review (SLR).

METHODS

SLR (PRISMA guideline) on MEDLINE/OVID, LILACS, EMBASE, and Cochrane/OVID bases (until July 2020, without limits). All types of clinical studies were considered: patients ≥18 years old with SSc and treatment with hMSC.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA

animal models, autologous/allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplants, narrative reviews, letters to the editor. MeSH and "Key word" terms were used. The level of evidence and the quality rating were rated [Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) lists]. Registration in PROSPERO repository (ID CRD42020185245) The Synthesis Without Meta-analysis (SWiM) guideline was followed.

RESULTS

We initially identified 508 articles, of which 11 were finally included (8 case series and 3 case reports). The 11 articles included 101 patients (85 female, age range 18-75 years). The level of evidence was mostly 4 (JBI); the quality of evidence was met (≥50% of JBI items). SWiM showed that vascular skin involvement (digital ulcers, necrosis, and gangrene) and associated pain were the predominant outcomes, while improvements were found in almost all cases. One patient died in the first month, and the frequency of complications was low. Expanded hMSCs were used in 24 patients and other cell sources in the remaining patients.

CONCLUSION

There is too little reported data to reach definite conclusions about the use of hMSC in SSc. Further studies with better epidemiological designs are needed to evaluate the benefit of hMSCs in SSc patients.

Infrared thermography in the diagnosis of musculoskeletal injuries: A protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Musculoskeletal injuries (MSDs) have become a major public health problem worldwide. Current diagnosis techniques for MSDs are often associated with radiation exposure, expensive cost, or contraindication. Infrared thermography (IRT) is becoming a proposed tool to assist in diagnosing MSDs, but current evidence is inconclusive. Thus, herein we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of IRT for MSDs.

METHODS

We will search EMBASE, MEDLINE, EBSCO, Cochrane Library, SCOPUS, Web of Science, CNKI, SinoMed, and Wangfang. Two researchers will independently screen eligible studies. Study quality will be evaluated based on the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) tool. Data synthesis will be completed using STATA 14.0 software. A bivariate random-effects analysis will be utilized to estimate the pooled estimation of the diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and the summary receiver operating characteristics (SROC) curve. Subgroup analyses will be performed to determine heterogeneity sources.

RESULTS

This systematic review and meta-analysis will provide reliable evidence about the diagnostic accuracy of IRT for MSDs.

CONCLUSION

The conclusion of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

ETHICS AND COMMUNICATION

Given that this is a systematic review of published research, patient consent and ethical approval are not relevant. The findings of this study will be disseminated through conference presentations and publication in peer-reviewed journals.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42020184867.

Musculoskeletal applications of infrared thermography on back and neck syndromes: a systematic review

INTRODUCTION

Thermography is a noninvasive method to detect temperature changes on or near the surface of the body. Despite its utility has not yet been fully verified, it may be used as a complementary method to screening and/or monitoring treatment effectiveness. This systematic review evaluates the role of infrared thermography as a helpful outcome measure tool in subjects with back and neck syndromes.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

A literature search was conducted across the National Library of Medicine (MEDLINE), Web of Science and Scopus databases for studies that evaluated the role of infrared thermography as a helpful outcome measure tool in subjects with back and neck syndromes. The review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA).

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

The search strategy and selection criteria yielded 812 articles. From these, 268 duplicates were removed, and only 16 were in line with the aim of this review. Ultimately, only seven precisely fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were included in the review. According to the articles reviewed, thermography seems to give an objective notion of change in inflammatory activity, which can corroborate the usefulness of treatment or the improvement/worsening of the patient's symptoms. The overall quality of research was uneven in the study design, endpoint measures, and sample characteristics.

CONCLUSIONS

The number of high-quality studies of the role of infrared thermography in patients with back and neck syndromes remains limited. More than a diagnostic tool, thermography can be an objective tool for monitoring the effectiveness of treatment by identifying deviations from a healthy state.

Undifferentiated connective tissue disease at risk for systemic sclerosis: Which patients might be labeled prescleroderma?

Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease at risk for Systemic Sclerosis (UCTD-risk-SSc), otherwise referred to as very early-early SSc (very early-early diagnosis of systemic sclerosis VEDOSS), is a condition characterized by Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) and either SSc serum marker autoantibodies or a capillaroscopic scleroderma pattern or both, but without satisfying classification criteria for SSc neither features consistent with SSc sine scleroderma. Approximately half the UCTD-risk-SSc patients develop definite SSc over 5-10 years of follow-up. Identifying patients who will undergo such evolution is an unmet need. Predicting at onset which patients with RP are going to develop SSc over time has long been a research objective and still is an unaccomplished task. The present review is devoted to the critical analysis of the nosographic boundaries of the condition and of items predictive of evolution including serological, capillaroscopic and circulating markers. A weighted score, based on serum antinuclear antibody titre, serum marker antibodies positivity and avascular areas has been developed and may identify in the meanwhile patients to be labeled prescleroderma i.e. those probably developing SSc over time. Future research should be directed to investigate unexplored features, validate and improve the performance of the score and highlight the involved pathways to be contrasted in order to identify a targeted therapy hampering the development of overt SSc.