Development of a Device Equipped with a Thermocouple for Measuring Nasal Airflow

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Background and Objectives：To measure nasal cavity function as an airway, rhinomanometry and acoustic rhinometry arecurrently being used in clinical settings. However, these methods are not helpful for continuously measuring the aerodynamicstatus of both nasal cavities simultaneously. Therefore, a new instrument to evaluate the nasal flow is required. Materials andMethods：To measure the airflow of bilateral nasal cavity simultaneously, two thermocouples are held in the headset, with thetips of thermocouples positioned below nostrils. The thermocouples are connected to the analog-digital converter and the digitizeddata is transferred to a notebook computer, in which a graphical programming language software is installed. Eighteen adults wererecruited for this study who had no structural abnormality in their nasal cavities. For every subject, measurements from acousticrhinometry, the thermocouple device, and rhinomanometry were taken in succession. The data from the thermocouple devicewas compared with those taken from the acoustic rhinometry and rhinomanometry. Results：A negative correlation was notedbetween the minimum cross-sectional area by acoustic rhinometry and the inspiratory slope by thermocouple. No correlationwas noted between the results for rhinomanometry and the thermocouple device. Conclusion：The thermocouple device has someadvantages over other devices for its non-invasive, continuous, and real-time measurements and its ability to measure bilateralnasal cavity simultaneously.