1 Medical Director, CHAMPS Abington Memorial Hospital 1200 York Road Abington, Pennsylvania 19001
2 SUNY Health Science Center 750 East Adams Street, Syracuse, New York 13210
To the Editor.
In the March 1992 issue of Pediatrics, Freed and Fraley published an article entitled, "Lack of Agreement of Tympanic Membrane Temperature Assessments with Conventional Methods in a Private Practice Setting."1 This study concluded that the FIRST Temp thermometer was unreliable, compared with conventional methods of temperature-taking in the private pediatric setting. I would like to raise two methodologic concerns which may have influenced their results. Under "Methods," the authors state that their tympanic thermometer provided a choice of two modes: "tympanic" and "surface," They further state that the tympanic mode was used for all temperature measurements.