• Juhee Park, Woo Sun Jang, Kui Young Park, Kapsok Li, Seong Jun Seo, Chang Kwun Hong, and Jong Beum Lee.
• Department of Dermatology, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
• Skin Res Technol. 2012 Feb 1;18(1):88-93.

Background/PurposeInfrared thermal images in patients suffering from herpes zoster (HZ) may exhibit thermal asymmetry due to the unilateral distribution of HZ lesions. This study examined the usefulness of infrared thermography in acute HZ as a predictor for the development of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN).MethodsThe authors collected demographic and clinical data including age, sex, onset of skin lesion, pain intensity by a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the development of PHN from a total of 55 patients diagnosed with HZ. We evaluated the body surface thermographic parameters between the lesion and contralateral normal skin: maximal difference in the temperature (ΔT) and the size of the body surface area (BSA) showing thermal asymmetry.ResultsTemperatures of the lesions were found to be warmer than the control side in most patients with acute HZ. We compared the patient group who developed PHN with those who did not. In univariate analysis, patients with PHN were older (P=0.004), had a higher VAS score for pain (P<0.001), higher ΔT (P<0.001) and larger BSA (P=0.001). In logistic regression analysis to identify independent risk factors of PHN, older age (>60 years old) and ΔT more than 0.5 °C were found to be statistically significant.© 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.

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