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Infrared thermography as valuable tool for gynoid lipodystrophy (cellulite) diagnosis

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Abstract

Cellulite is a morphological alteration of the tegument tissue, directly interfering in self-esteem with etiology and pathophysiology far from being a consensus. Although the visual diagnosis of cellulitis is well known, it does not represent the real pathological condition of the subcutaneous tissue. The aim of the study was to investigate the hypothesis that the more heterogeneous tissue pattern analyzed by infrared thermography, the more severe is the cellulite grade. Forty female participants were selected and 60 thighs were analyzed by clinical anamnesis and infrared thermography. Classical visual analysis was correlated to the tissue heterogeneity measured by thermography. R Spearman’s correlation between visual evaluation and thermography was 0.92. Phototype presented a negative significant correlation of 0.67 with classical visual analysis. In the present study, we presented a simple method based on infrared thermography that can be adopted in any esthetics office with a correlation of 0.92 with the visual classic evaluation, but, besides, may be very helpful to the clinician to decide which treatment will be adopted, i.e., an aggressive and inflammatory approach such as the radiofrequency of shockwave therapy or an anti-inflammatory approach such as photobiomodulation, depending on the inflammatory status of cellulite.

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Funding

The study was supported by CNPq – Brazil.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Post-Graduate Program in Human Movement and Rehabilitation, Research Group in Biophotonics and Experimental Therapeutics in Health and Esthetics - Universidade Evangélica de Goiás – UniEvangélica, Av. Universitária Km 3,5, Anápolis, Brazil

    Rodrigo Alvaro B. Lopes-Martins & Patrícia Sardinha Leonardo

  2. Programa de Pós-Graduação Em Bioengenharia, Universidade Brasil – UB, Rua Carolina Fonseca 235, Itaquera 08230-030, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Rodrigo Alvaro B. Lopes-Martins & Carlos Ruiz-Silva

  3. Programa de Pós-Graduação Em Engenharia Biomédica, Instituto de Pesquisa & Desenvolvimento, Universidade Do Vale Do Paraíba - UNIVAP. Av. Shishima Hifumi 2911 - 12244-000, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil

    Douglas Peretta Barbaroto, Elaine Da Silva Barbosa & Emília Angela Lo Schiavo Arisawa

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  1. Rodrigo Alvaro B. Lopes-Martins
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  2. Douglas Peretta Barbaroto
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  3. Elaine Da Silva Barbosa
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  4. Patrícia Sardinha Leonardo
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  5. Carlos Ruiz-Silva
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  6. Emília Angela Lo Schiavo Arisawa
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Correspondence to Rodrigo Alvaro B. Lopes-Martins.

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Lopes-Martins, R.A.B., Barbaroto, D.P., Da Silva Barbosa, E. et al. Infrared thermography as valuable tool for gynoid lipodystrophy (cellulite) diagnosis. Lasers Med Sci 37, 2639–2644 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-022-03530-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-022-03530-2

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