Usefulness of thermographic images obtained with a smartphone in designing perforator flaps

Abstract

Infrared thermography has been rarely used in medical situation. Infrared camera attached with smartphone are recently used in checking the construction area and power distribution. On the other hand, in medical situation, it has been proved that thermographic images obtained with a smartphone thermal camera have high concordance with the method such as ultrasound flow meter and computed tomography angiography. We carried out perforator detections on 11 patients admitted to the Department of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery of Yokohama Minami Kyosai Hospital and Kitasato University School of Medicine from Apr.2018 to Dec.2019. 11 flaps were designed on buttock, calf and abdominal regions by using iphone and FLIR one, in 6 cases, 4 cases and 1 case respectively. There were 30 hot spots and, in 24 hot spot areas, ultrasound flows were detected too. Those results make it an useful method for mapping perforators in preoperative flap designing, comparable with CTA.