Cited by 55Infrared Thermography in MedicineThermography and Photoacoustic TechniquesNon-Invasive Vital Sign Monitoring

Review of the efficacy of infrared thermography for screening infectious diseases with applications to COVID-19

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Khaksari, Kosar, Nguyen, Thien, Hill, Brian Y., Perrault, John, Gorti, Viswanath, Blick, Emily, Gonzalez Cano, Tomas, Shadgan, Babak +3 more·2021·Journal of medical imaging

Abstract

Purpose: The recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which spread across the globe in a very short period of time, revealed that the transmission control of disease is a crucial step to prevent an outbreak and effective screening for viral infectious diseases is necessary. Since the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, infrared thermography (IRT) has been considered a gold standard method for screening febrile individuals at the time of pandemics. The objective of this review is to evaluate the efficacy of IRT for screening infectious diseases with specific applications to COVID-19. Approach: A literature review was performed in Google Scholar, PubMed, and ScienceDirect to search for studies evaluating IRT screening from 2002 to present using relevant keywords. Additional literature searches were done to evaluate IRT in comparison to traditional core body temperature measurements and assess the benefits of measuring additional vital signs for infectious disease screening. Results: Studies have reported on the unreliability of IRT due to poor sensitivity and specificity in detecting true core body temperature and its inability to identify asymptomatic carriers. Airport mass screening using IRT was conducted during occurrences of SARS, Dengue, Swine Flu, and Ebola with reported sensitivities as low as zero. Other studies reported that screening other vital signs such as heart and respiratory rates can lead to more robust methods for early infection detection. Conclusions: Studies evaluating IRT showed varied results in its efficacy for screening infectious diseases. This suggests the need to assess additional physiological parameters to increase the sensitivity and specificity of non-invasive biosensors.

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Crossref · 10.1117/1.jmi.8.s1.010901

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  • A single temperature measurement can indicate whether a patient has fever or hypothermia.

    “A single temperature measurement can tell us whether the patient has a fever or hypothermia [150,151,152,153,154].”

    From The Current State of Optical Sensors in Medical Wearables (2022) · cites this paper as [153]

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  1. [80]Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, “ Non-contact thermometers for detecting fever: a review of clinical effectiveness,” CADTH Rapid Response Reports (2014). 25520984

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Authors
Khaksari, K., Nguyen, T., Hill, B. Y., Perrault, J., Gorti, V., Blick, E., Gonzalez Cano, T., Shadgan, B., Quang, T., Malpani, R., & Gandjbakhche, A. H.
Affiliations
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • National Institutes of Health
  • University of British Columbia (CA)
Corresponding author
Gandjbakhche, Amir H.
Venue
Journal of medical imaging
Published
2021-03-25
Volume
8
Issue
S1
Pages
010901-010901
ISSN
  • 2329-4302 (ISSN-L)
  • 2329-4310
OpenAlex
W3142685251
Cited by
55
References
83
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 4
FWCI
1.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of medical imaging (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Trường Đại học Bách Khoa Hà Nội
  • Michael Smith Health Research BC
  • Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
  • University of British Columbia
  • International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Infrared Thermography in Medicine
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanics of Materials › Thermography and Photoacoustic Techniques
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Non-Invasive Vital Sign Monitoring
Keywords
infrared thermography, COVID-19 pandemic, infectious disease screening, fever detection, core body temperature, screening sensitivity and specificity, asymptomatic carriers, vital signs, SARS, Ebola, dengue, swine influenza, non-invasive biosensors

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