Predictive value answers these questions. Diagnostic accuracy varied so significantly that meaningful interpretation was difficult. Most of the research in thermography has centered on the low back. It is important to note that very little research on thermography has been done in our own profession despite the deluge of articles extolling its benefits. Whether they are more reliable than thermography is not known.
Questions regarding the exact meaning of variations in skin temperature continue to surface.
Recently Bennett and Ochoa9 experimented with rats by creating a lesion in the sciatic nerves of one group. A control group had no lesion. Analysis by thermography revealed two curious things. Fully 59 percent of the nerve-lesioned rats had normal thermograms and, of the nerve lesioned group with thermographic abnormalities, the paw temperature varied from day to day between hot and cold. Most authorities, for example, draw different conclusions for hot vs. cold findings.