INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY FOR EVALUATION OF TENDING INJURIES: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW

Background

Tendon dysfunctions are classified into overuse tears, injuries, and inflammatory conditions such as tendinopathies. Infrared thermography (IT) is a diagnostic technique that has been used to evaluate these disorders.

Objective

Identify how IT can be useful in tracking normal and/or abnormal thermal profiles in tendinopathies.

Methods

An integrative bibliographic review was carried out in the PUBMED, PEDro and CENTRAL databases, from 03/24/2022 to 04/05/2022, including the combination of terms and keywords using the Boolean operators OR and AND, with the following descriptors: Tendinopathy; Tendinitis; Tendinitis; Tendon injury; Tendon injuries; Risk of tendon injury; Risks of tendon injuries; Tendinosis; Tenosynovitis; Tendon overload; Paratendinitis; Paratendinitis; Peritendonitis; peritendinitis; Impact; impacts; Loom; Tears; Infrared thermography; Thermography; Thermographic change; Thermal imaging; Thermal Imaging; Infrared imaging; Infrared imaging; Temperature mapping; Temperature mapping; Infrared thermal imaging; Skin temperature; Grouped thermographic changes. Inclusion criteria: The search was carried out in English, without time restrictions, and articles with results and discussion: journals in all languages, clinical trial-type studies, precision and observational type of case study, case-control, cohort and cross-sectional studies, with a population of both sexes, and which used thermography as a screening method for tendon injuries. Exclusion criteria: Articles that did not present all the results used in the study.

Results

1,279 studies were selected, and after reading the titles and abstracts, those that did not meet the criteria and duplicates were excluded, leaving 16 articles included. Of these, seven were selected to compose the results. In general, it was analyzed that IT is an excellent tool with potential for evaluation, diagnosis, monitoring, and prevention purposes, as it is possible to track asymmetries, inflammation, training effects, performance improvement and prevention of tendon injuries.

Conclusion

According to the literature review carried out, it was observed that IT is suitable for analyzing tendon tissues, taking into account different research strategies. However, it is important that new accuracy studies, such as randomized clinical trials, are developed since current studies do not yet have a consensual level of scientific evidence.

Implications

The IT used in this context of assessing tendon injuries becomes useful so that the physiotherapist has an assessment tool with excellent predictive power, so that his practice is safer and more supported.