Evaluation of cases with acute / chronic physical trauma by digital infrared thermal camera and investigation of causal link between findings and trauma history

Digital infrared thermographic imaging (DITI) is a noninvasive method that has been used for a long time to visualize the temperature of the body through the skin, for diagnostic purposes and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment in clinic. In the practice of forensic medicine, in cases of physical trauma, to determine the causality between trauma and injuries may be complicated either a long time after being subjected to physical violence, or healing of the injuries etc. The aim of this study is to research whether the findings obtained by imaging of the areas of trauma and painful regions with digital infrared thermal camera can contribute to clarify the causality relationship in whom exposed to acute or chronic physical trauma and the feasibility of the method. We included 60 patients who applied to Istanbul Medical Faculty Forensic Medicine Department and the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey with an early/late term physical trauma history and 30 controls to this study. Data obtained from trauma cases and control group were evaluated between August 2018 and April 2019. The whole body thermal images of each case were taken with the FLIR T540 thermal camera. Then body was divided into 19 different regions and temperature calculations were made based on the temperature difference between the right and left side of each region. As a result, a significant difference in temperature was found between the traumatized and non-traumatized areas in all regions but one. In addition there was a significant difference in temperature in all regions where pain was described. The sensitivity and specificity of the method were high among patients who had been subjected to trauma in the last 6 months. The findings suggest that DITI can be used as an additional diagnostic tool in the determination of trauma, and therefore in the assessment of causality when evaluated with history.