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Development of a method for estimating oesophageal temperature by multi-locational temperature measurement inside the external auditory canal

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Abstract

We aimed to develop a practical method to estimate oesophageal temperature by measuring multi-locational auditory canal temperatures. This method can be applied to prevent heatstroke by simultaneously and continuously monitoring the core temperatures of people working under hot environments. We asked 11 healthy male volunteers to exercise, generating 80 W for 45 min in a climatic chamber set at 24, 32 and 40 °C, at 50% relative humidity. We also exposed the participants to radiation at 32 °C. We continuously measured temperatures at the oesophagus, rectum and three different locations along the external auditory canal. We developed equations for estimating oesophageal temperatures from auditory canal temperatures and compared their fitness and errors. The rectal temperature increased or decreased faster than oesophageal temperature at the start or end of exercise in all conditions. Estimated temperature showed good similarity with oesophageal temperature, and the square of the correlation coefficient of the best fitting model reached 0.904. We observed intermediate values between rectal and oesophageal temperatures during the rest phase. Even under the condition with radiation, estimated oesophageal temperature demonstrated concordant movement with oesophageal temperature at around 0.1 °C overestimation. Our method measured temperatures at three different locations along the external auditory canal. We confirmed that the approach can credibly estimate the oesophageal temperature from 24 to 40 °C for people performing exercise in the same place in a windless environment.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mr. Koichi Monji who supported us technically in controlling the artificial chamber.

Author’s contributions

HN, SK, JI and SH contributed to the study design. HN, SK, YI, KS and KA collected data. HN, SK and SH analysed and interpreted the data and drafted the manuscript. Critique of the article for intellectual content was undertaken by HN, SK, JI and SH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Policy and Management, Institute of Industrial Ecological Sciences, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, 1-1 Iseigaoka, Yahatanishi-ku, Kitakyushu, 807-8555, Japan

    Hirofumi Nakada, Seichi Horie, Shoko Kawanami & Jinro Inoue

  2. Midori Electric Company, Chikuma, Nagano, Japan

    Yoshinori Iijima & Kiyoharu Sato

  3. Midori Anzen Company, Tokyo, Japan

    Takeshi Abe

Authors
  1. Hirofumi Nakada
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  2. Seichi Horie
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  3. Shoko Kawanami
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  4. Jinro Inoue
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  5. Yoshinori Iijima
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  6. Kiyoharu Sato
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  7. Takeshi Abe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seichi Horie.

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Ethical approval

The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, in 2013. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

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Nakada, H., Horie, S., Kawanami, S. et al. Development of a method for estimating oesophageal temperature by multi-locational temperature measurement inside the external auditory canal. Int J Biometeorol 61, 1545–1554 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1333-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1333-1

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