A termografia infravermelha pode substituir outros métodos avaliativos da intensidade de dor orofacial neurogênica e musculoesquelética em pacientes em adultos? Uma revisão sistemática

Abstract

Infrared thermography (it) has gained ground in dentistry as an alternative diagnostic modality as it is a painless, non-invasive, non-ionizing and low-cost method that reveals the distribution of body temperature, detects functional, nervous and vascular changes through photographic images in real time that reflects the local microcirculation of the region examined. Measuring pain intensity is a complex task due to the different components involved. It is known that there is a relationship between pain, muscle activity and temperature. Therefore, the objective of the study was to systematically review the literature in order to verify whether infrared thermography (IT) can be used as a substitute for other methods to assess the intensity of orofacial pain. neurogenic and musculoskeletal in adult patients. Five electronic databases were used (PubMed, SciELO, Web of Science, SciVerse Scopus and Cochrane Library) to identify studies with potential relevance among clinical trials, case-control studies, cohort studies and clinical cases with more than three patients until April 2023. The PECO question (Population: adults with a history of orofacial pain; Exposure: to IT examination; Control: other assessment methods of orofacial pain intensity and Outcome: correlation of IT with other assessment methods of orofacial pain intensity) was used to select titles and abstracts. Gray literature and manual search were consulted and no articles were included in the review. The searches resulted in 7,194 references, of which 5 publications met the eligibility criteria and were included in the systematic review. Of the 5 eligible studies, 4 reported an association between the intensity of orofacial pain for adult patients and the temperature of the masticatory muscles and TMJ regions. Of these, 1 article showed that patients with TMD and pain present an increase in temperature in relation to normal individuals without pain and the other 3 articles showed a decrease in temperature with increasing pain intensity. In a single study, pain intensity was not significantly associated with masticatory muscle temperature. The analysis of the methodological quality of the selected studies was carried out according to the Joanna Briggs scale, which resulted in moderate quality in general and no study presented a high risk of bias. Based on the scientific evidence chosen in this review, it can be seen that there is disagreement in the literature regarding the behavior of temperature and the intensity of orofacial pain and that IT does not replace other pain intensity assessment methods, but is an important ally for diagnostic and prognostic complementation.