Research Article The Use of Infrared Thermography as a Rapid, Quantitative, and Noninvasive Method for Evaluation of Inflammation Response in Different Anatomical Regions of Rats Ireneusz CaBkosiNski, 1 Maciej DobrzyNski, 2 Joanna RosiNczuk, 1 Krzysztof Dudek, 3 Aleksander Chrószcz, 4 Katarzyna Fita, 2 and Robert Dymarek 1 1 Department of Nervous System Diseases, he Faculty of Health Science, Wroclaw Medical University, 5 Bartla Street, 51-618 Wroclaw, Poland 2 Department of Conservative Dentistry and Pedodontics, he Faculty of Dentistry, Wroclaw Medical University, 26 Krakowska Street, 50-425 Wroclaw, Poland 3 Institute of Machines Design and Operation, Technical University of Wrocław, 7/9 Łukasiewicza Street, 50-371 Wroclaw, Poland 4 Department of Animal Physiology and Biostructure, he Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, 1/3 Ko˙ zuchowska Street, 51-631 Wroclaw, Poland Correspondence should be addressed to Robert Dymarek; r.dymarek@gmail.com Received 18 December 2014; Revised 24 February 2015; Accepted 25 February 2015 Academic Editor: Koichiro Wada Copyright © 2015 Ireneusz Całkosi´ nski et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose. hermographic assessment of temperature distribution within the examined tissues allows a quick, noncontact, noninvasive measurement of their temperature. he aim of the study was to evaluate the usefulness of digital infrared imaging in monitoring experimental inlammation of pleura (PL), lower lip (LL), and let paw (LP) and right paw (RP) of lower limbs in rats. Materials and Methods. he inlammatory reaction was induced by injection of 1% carrageenin solution into pleural cavity, lip, or paws. With the use of digital infrared imaging temperature measurement was conducted at 0 to 72 hours of the inlammatory reaction. Results. he temperature decrease was observed at the site of injection directly aterwards. Next, it was gradually increasing and it reached the maximum on the third day of the inlammatory reaction. Statistically signiicant changes were observed ater 48-hour period in PL and LL regions, as well as ater 72-hour period in LP and RP regions ( < 0.005). Conclusion. It was found that thermographic examination allows for indicating the presence of inlammatory reaction within examined tissues and determining the dynamics of this process. his method could be used as alternative procedure that allows using fewer animals for experiments. 1. Introduction hermography based on measurements of the level of infrared emission of the examined body surface is one of diagnostic noninvasive methods characterized by large sensitivity [1–3]. hermography enables registration of the trophic conditions of tissues, as well as thermoregulatory mechanisms, altered areas of tissue metabolism, and inlammatory response [4, 5]. Increased blood low accompanying inlammatory reaction, as well as increased tissue catabolism, causes a signiicant rise in local temperature. A map of body temperature is presented graphically and for each temperature scale there is a diferent colour assigned. A signiicant and positive feature of diag- nostic thermographic measurements is a brief assessment of blood supply of a particular area which proportionally relects a local rise or drop in temperature, which is directly con- nected with a series of both functional (i.e., efort hyperemia) and pathological processes, which accompany some phases of the inlammatory reaction. It should be emphasized that there are conirmed diiculties in diagnostics with biochemical examination in the very irst stage of inlammation reaction, which is directly related to the local (regional) changes at irst, and then it can be observed at the systemic (global) level [6, 7]. By using this method in this research the dynamics Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2015, Article ID 972535, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/972535