Assessment of time required to reach plantar thermal acclimatisation in patients with diabetes.
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Diabetic foot ulceration is a severe complication of diabetes that is preventable through early detection of pre-ulcerative changes. Infrared thermography is a non-invasive technique used to identify abnormal plantar temperature patterns associated with diabetic foot risk. Current guidelines recommend a minimum 15-minute acclimatisation period before imaging; however, acclimatisation duration remains variable in practice, and existing recommendations are based on absolute skin-temperature stabilisation rather than plantar asymmetry, a lack of standardisation identified as a barrier to the clinical adoption of diabetic-foot thermography. This prospective repeated-measures methodological study characterised plantar thermal acclimatisation in 41 adults with diabetes undergoing routine foot screening in a controlled clinical setting. Plantar thermal images were acquired every 30 seconds over a 15-minute period. Stabilisation was assessed using categorical inter-foot asymmetry (a temperature difference greater than 2.2°C), absolute plantar temperature, and inter-foot temperature difference. Categorical inter-foot asymmetry was stable from the initial measurement in 75% of participants, with a median stabilisation time of 0 seconds. Inter-foot temperature difference measures also stabilised immediately, with median and 75th percentile values of 0 seconds across all regions, whereas approximately 75% of participants reached stability in absolute temperature measures within 3.5 minutes. These findings suggest that clinically relevant asymmetry stabilises earlier than absolute temperature, providing evidence to re-examine fixed acclimatisation periods and informing more practical, clinically aligned protocols for diabetic foot screening.
Source: Research Square
Language: English
Subfield: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7168293441