Oral health appointment in the context of COVID-19 pandemic: The contribute of infrared thermography

Background: This research is focused on the oral health of a patient attending a dental appointment during the COVID-19 pandemic, where emergency treatments can have on infrared thermography (IRT), a technology that can be implemented as a screening method to quantify the temperature of the patient. IRT is an interesting bioengineering tool as it can provide more data to the clinician and even to the patient, who may not perceive the sublets fever sights from the begin; (2) Methods: Methods: This work analyzes anatomical landmarks on 98 frontal thermograms of the cranio-cervico-mandibular complex; (3) Results: The regions of interest for fever screening analyzed were the forehead, the inner canthus left eye, the inner canthus right eye with the mean temperature of 33.75 °C, 34.50 °C and 34.58 °C respectively. Significant statistically differences were observed comparing the temperature values of the forehead and the inner canthus. A greater temperature symmetry was found between the inner canthus of the left eye compared to the contralateral right eye; and (4) Conclusions: The authors intend to provide information that can stimulate a reflection on future directions for research and regulatory methods applied in dental medical sciences and how these measures can integrate the dental activity in a multidisciplinary model. In the future, as a consequence of this CoVID-19 disease, more efforts will be made to provide indispensable apparatus and devices that complement the already existing protection equipment. Within the area of bioengineering, the infrared thermography can be implemented as a protective additional measure in the clinical protocol during the attendance of a patient.