Temperature measurements on facial skin surface as evaluated by infrared thermal cam-era and pyrometer following physiotherapeutic light treatments

Abstract

Any clinical procedure in dentistry, especially one that involves a breach of tissue integrity, carries the risk of complications, which can occur in any speciality. These include: postopera-tive wound pain, tissue swelling, bleeding, redness, elevated temperature, trismus, decreased sensation as a result of nerve damage. Postoperative patient care aims to minimise the risk of complications and to treat those which have developed. To this end, we can resort to physical therapy, one of the modalities of which is light therapy, using electromagnetic wave ranges of red, infrared, yellow and ultraviolet light. Yet, it remains unclear which wavelength should be used to treat any specific disease entity and which form of therapeutic light should be used in the rehabilitation of a specific complication following dental procedures? In this study, we used the Cason CA380 infrared digital pyrometer with a laser pointer and the Fluke Ti 400 thermal imaging camera. On the basis of the tests and statistical analysis, it can be concluded that the application of light significantly increases the temperature of the irradiated facial skin surface. Irrespective of the type of light used, each was associated with an increase in temper-ature. A more pronounced increase in temperature on the facial skin surface after a given ap-plication suggests that the effect of light therapy is shallow, which is relevant to the choice of a specific light wavelength to be applied in a particular disease entity or dental complication.