Clinical applicable skin-interfaced thermal guiding sensor for warning perioperative abnormalities in core body temperature and blood perfusion rate.

Abstract

Continuous monitoring of core temperature and blood perfusion is essential during general anesthesia, yet current workflows leave a critical gap during induction, before invasive probes can be placed. We present a compact, skin-interfaced thermal sensing platform for non-invasive monitoring throughout the anesthetic process. The device combines thermal-guiding materials with real-time heat-transfer modeling and inversion algorithms to estimate tissue thermal conductivity, blood perfusion, core temperature, and surface heat flux. Phantom and human-subject experiments showed measurement errors within ±10% or ±0.1 °C. During laparoscopic surgery, the estimated core temperature agreed well with invasive esophageal measurements. Long-term monitoring across sleep, exercise, and rest also demonstrated robust performance compared with a conventional dual-heat-flux sensor (r > 0.85). This multimodal platform may provide a reliable alternative for perioperative thermal monitoring and support broader applications in personalized thermal health management.