Infrared tympanic membrane thermometers are considered ideal because the tympanic membrane and the hypothalamus share an arterial blood supply originating from the carotid artery; therefore, the tympanic membrane is considered to directly reflect core temperature. An infrared tympanic membrane thermometer is easy to use and is favored over a conventional mercury thermometer provided its accuracy is guaranteed. Few published data are available on the accuracy of tympanic membrane thermometers. Thus, the aim of the current study was to compare the temperature obtained by tympanic membrane thermometers with that obtained with mercury glass thermometers before recommending tympanic thermometers for use in general practice in Sudan.
Introduction
By monitoring these critical temperatures, you can identify developing problems in time to take preventive action. The easier it is to do the monitoring, the more likely your team will do it. The harder it is to do, the less time busy plant technicians will find to do it. This is the argument for noncontact infrared (IR) temperature measurement. Consider, for example, how fast IR instruments are. You can take a measurement in one quarter of a second. This means you don't waste time waiting for thermocouples to stabilize.
The "Cadillac" of such measurement is thermographic imaging (TI). TI, like a Cadillac, carries a premium price. And, like a Cadillac, it's not always the appropriate vehicle to take you where you need to go. Nor can everybody afford one. For much less money and much less training, the IR thermometer stands out as the tool of choice for most noncontact IR measurement tasks. These convenient point-and-shoot devices are fast, accurate, and efficient. Their technology has proven itself in over 40 years of use.
Body temperature is an indication to express the health condition or pathological state. Measurement of body temperature has become an essentially diagnostic method for medical treatment. There are two traditional methods to measure the body temperature. The first type is the glass mercury thermometer. This thermometer is inexpensive and easy to use. However, the response time is from 3 to 5 minutes. The glass material is extremely fragile and can be dangerous to the human body. The second type is the electronic digital thermometer. Its sensing element is made of a thermistor or resistance detector. This meter can measure the temperature within several seconds. However, the electronic device is affected by aging problems. The sensing elements of digital thermometer still need to have contact with the human body. Several problems exist in the clinical operation. The patient reaction, such as children or infant, could affect the measurement of these contact thermometers.
The best method is to measure the core body temperature, such as the temperature of coronary arteries. However, this is impossible except by using invasive surgical procedures. Recently, many literatures reported that the core temperature can be measured by detecting the positions near the membrane of the ear canal. The infrared tympanic thermometer was developed to serve as a detector for medical applications. The construction and operating principle of infrared tympanic thermometer have been introduced in detail.
The reliability and accuracy of infrared tympanic thermometer have been discussed by many researchers. Their results are inconsistent. Dodd et al.  compared the reading values of infrared ear temperature for children aged between 0 and 18 with that of rectal thermometry. Their conclusions indicated that the infrared ear thermometer would fail to detect fever in 75% of febrile children. Craig et al. found that the pooled mean temperature difference for rectal temperature minus infrared ear temperature was 0.3 °C. The significant difference (significance was taken as p < 0.05) was found between two sets of data. These authors suggested that the infrared ear thermometer did not indicate the sufficient agreement with the body temperature measured by rectal temperature. Kistemaker et al.  evaluated the performance of an infrared forehead thermometer. They concluded that this Sensor Touch meter could work well in stable conditions. The average difference between the infrared forehead thermometer and a rectal sensor ranged from 0.3 to 0.5 °C. Kocoglu et al. 红外鼓膜温度计英文文献和中文翻译(2):http://www.751com.cn/fanyi/lunwen_16489.html