title: Clinical accuracy of tympanic thermometer and noncontact infrared skin thermometer in pediatric practice: an alternative for axillary digital thermometer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this study was to compare the body temperature measurements of infrared tympanic and forehead noncontact thermometers with the axillary digital thermometer.
  
  
  METHODS
  Randomly selected 50 pediatric patients who were hospitalized in Dr Behcet Uz Children's Training and Research Hospital, Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit, between March 2012 and September 2012 were included in the study. Body temperature measurements were performed using an axillary thermometer (Microlife MT 3001), a tympanic thermometer (Microlife Ear Thermometer IR 100), and a noncontact thermometer (ThermoFlash LX-26).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fifty patients participated in this study. We performed 1639 temperature readings for every method. The average difference between the mean (SD) of both axillary and tympanic temperatures was -0.20°C (0.61°C) (95% confidence interval, -1.41°C to 1.00°C). The average difference between the mean (SD) of both axillary and forehead temperatures was -0.38 (0.55°C) (95% confidence interval, -1.47°C to 0.70°C). The Bland-Altman plot showed that most of the data points were tightly clustered around the zero line of the difference between the 2 temperature readings. With the use of the axillary method as the criterion standard, positive likelihood ratios were 17.9 and 16.5 and negative likelihood ratios were 0.2 and 0.4 for tympanic and forehead measurements, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results demonstrated that the infrared tympanic thermometer could be a good option in the measurement of fever in the pediatric population. The noncontact infrared thermometer is very useful for the screening of fever in the pediatric population, but it must be used with caution because it has a high value of bias.
authors: From the *Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Behçet Uz Children's Hospital; †Department of Pediatric Hematology, Dokuz Eylül University Hospital; and Departments of ‡Pediatrics and §Pediatric Intensive Care, Behçet Uz Children's Hospital, İzmir, Turkey.
authors: Hurşit
authors: H
authors: Apa
authors: Salih
authors: S
authors: Gözmen
authors: Nuri
authors: N
authors: Bayram
authors: Asl
authors: A
authors: Çatkoğlu
authors: Fatma
authors: F
authors: Devrim
authors: Utku
authors: U
authors: Karaarslan
authors: İlker
authors: İ
authors: Günay
authors: Nurettin
authors: N
authors: Ünal
authors: İlker
authors: İ
authors: Devrim
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001365:Axilla; D001831:Body Temperature; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004432:Ear, Middle; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D005334:Fever / Q000175:diagnosis; D005546:Forehead; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D055552:Infectious Disease Medicine; D007259:Infrared Rays; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012494:Sampling Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012881:Skin Temperature; D013821:Thermometers / Q000145:classification