Thermal profile classification of the back of sportive and sedentary healthy individuals

Background Infrared thermography (IRT) is a non-harmful, risk-free imaging technique and it has application for healthy and pathological population. Objective The aim of this study is to evaluate the thermographic profiles of the back of sport practitioners from different disciplines and compare it with those of sedentary healthy individuals. Method The back of 160 healthy subjects were evaluated, and participants were grouped considering their sport practice: team sport (TS), individual sport (IS), weight training (WT), inactive (I). Three regions of interest were identified to analyze the cervical, thoracic and lumbar temperatures of the back. Results The Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) resulted significant showing statistical differences for the cervical (p < 0.001), dorsal (p = 0.0011), and lumbar areas (p = 0.0366). The Tukey post-hoc test for pairwise comparison showed statistically significant differences between groups. For the cervical area significance was found between the IN and WT group (p = 0.002), the IN and IS group (p < 0.001), IN and TS group (p = 0.020). The dorsal area resulted significant between the IN and WT group (p = 0.007), the IN and IS group (p < 0.001), IN and TS group. The lumbar area showed significant differences only between the IN and WT group and the IN and IS group (p = 0.043). Conclusion This study demonstrated that inactive individuals manifest a statistically significant higher temperature in the cervical, dorsal and lumbar area of the back compared to sportive individuals.