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.
Chimerism Analysis in the Pediatric Setting