A Comparative Study on Temperature Accuracy between Tympanic, Rectal, and Axillary Sites

A new method recently used for measuring the temperature isusing tympanic thermometer. the aim of this study was tocompare the accuracy of this method with rectal and axillarymeasurement in children less than 6 years old. a total of 220pair ears, axillaries , and rectal sites were used to determine thebody temperature in patients aged between 3 months to 6years who referred to emergency department of fateme zahrahospital affiliated to bushehr university of medical sciences.rectal temperature (rt) was considered as gold standard . feverwas defined as rt> =38°c, axi liary temperature (at) > =37.2°c and tympanic temperature (tt) > = 38°c. correlationbetween rectal and tympanic temperature was statistically significant.the mean difference between rt and tt was a.3°eand between rt and at was 0.1°c. when cutoff point wasconsidered 38°c for tt, the sensitivity was 46%, specificitywas 97% and positive predictive value (ppy) and negativepredictive value (npy) were 92% and 72% respectively.roc curve showed the best cutoff point for it as 37°c,which increased the sensitivity to 92% and ppy to 0.98 but decreasedthe specificity to 90% and npy to 0.57. kappa testshowed a good agreement rate between rt and tt. age hadsignificant effects on the ttfrt relationship . if the cut off pointfor tt is set at 38°c the sensitivity and npy will be unacceptablylow and a number of children with fever may be missed byscreening with a tympanic thermometer. if the cutoff point is37°c, the sensitivity and npy will improve and it can be usedas a safe, easy, rapid, and accurate method in pediatrics.