Viabilidade do uso da termografia como recurso diagnóstico da fibromialgia

Abstract

Introduction: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic complex condition characterized by generalized pain, weariness, non-restorative sleep and cognitive impairment, whose prevalence in the population represents values between 0,2 and 6,6%. There are no biological markers, laboratory tests or image exams that validate the disorder, which makes it difficult to diagnose. Objective: Check the viability of using thermography as auxiliar resourse in the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Methods: It is a cross-sectional descriptive study, where 14 women aged 24 to 66 years were evaluated, being 7 participants of FM group and 7 of control group (CG), without the disease. Pain intensity measuarements were collected, number of tender points (TP), maximum skin temperature in TP regions, evaluated by thermography and morphofunctional change in the thorax by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Results: The groups FM and GC show the biggest skin temperatures in the trunk region (upper view: SA01 and SA02; bottom view SP01 and SP02) and the lowest temperatures in lower members (upper view: IA01 and IA02; bottom view: IP03 and IP04). The count of TP in both groups confirmed that the pain symptomatology is generalized only in FM group. In this group, there was positivity in the 18 points for 4 participants, with 3 points identified in the whole group (TPSA01, TPSA02 and TPSA03). Morphofunctional changes were found in both groups. Of the 4 participants with (FM) that performed MRI, 3 had radiculopathies, while for the GC, the 3 exams performed presented the same results. The thermography detected the influence of adiposity on the capture of images for GC without associated diseases, while for FM group the central and peripheral adiposity did not interfere in thermograms. Conclusion: The results suggest that, despite the importance of using thermography as auxiliary resourse in fibromyalgia diagnosis, it did not have the capacity for the isolated interpretation of clinical signals in the conclusive analysis of the diagnosis.