Introduction: At the Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, University of Mainz thermometric as well as thermographic measurements are carried out at present after cold provocation tests for the diagnosis of vibration-induced white finger (VWF). The following analysis aims to compare the two procedures and determine whether it is necessary to use both methods in future. Material and Methods: Thermometric and thermographic measurements were taken from each patient (n = 50, male, median age: 57 years) after 0 min (that means before cold provocation), 2 min after, 15 min after and 25 min after cold provocation. The data description was based on medians and quartiles for numerical and continuous variables, their graphical representation accordingly on box whisker plots. All analyses were generated with SPSS (Version 10.0 for Windows). Results: It was demonstrated that the temperature values obtained with the thermographic method were higher, in median and per finger, by approx. 0.5 to 1.5 °C. On the whole, this difference was consistent at all three measurement times. The proportion of pathological findings was about 10 % higher after thermometric measurement than after thermographic measurement. Conclusions: The thermometric measurement should not be abandoned because of the 10 % higher level of pathological findings. In unclear cases it should be used to diagnose the disease in favour of the affected individuals. It would be ideal to use both methods concomitantly to gain complete results.
