Effect of cooling and warming on thermographic imaging of the perforating vessels of the abdomen

The skin islands of musculocutaneous flaps are nourished by perforating art eries. An easy method for accurately locating these vessels preoperatively would be valuable in flap design. Thermography is being developed in our ce nter as a tool to locate the perforating vessels, which appear as "hot spot s" on thermographic images. The abdominal perforators of 16 women were mapp ed out after warming or cooling the skin with COLDI-micro thermocushions. I n group I (n=8) the thermo packs were applied to the lower abdominal skin f or 30 s and in group II (n=8) for 300 s. In both groups all hot spots disap peared after warming. After cooling, the hot spots were clearer and more re adily visible than at room temperature. The longer cooling time (300 s) gav e a 3.4 times better contrast (p=0.03) than the shorter cooling time (30 s) . The longer the cooling time, the longer the hot spots were visible. This work shows that cutaneous perforators can be sharply mapped preoperatively using thermography after simple bed-side cooling.