The light scattering phenomenon in optical fibres has been implemented in several applications for years. Nowadays, commercial distributed sensing systems for temperature measurements – distributed temperature sensing (DTS) – are gaining more attention and are being applied in many fields. The DTS systems are commonly based on optical time domain reflectometry or optical frequency domain reflectometry analysis approaches. This paper presents the simulation model and primary experimental results of a novel approach for data analysis for DTS systems based on the measurement of the backscattered Raman anti-Stokes radiation: the optical transient-state domain reflectometry. The novelty of this approach is the fast and accurate proposed analysis algorithm, as well as the cost-effective, secure and reliable set-up, whose main aspect is the implementation of long, low-power input laser pulses.