Comparison of the Accuracy of Thermography and Mammography in the Detection of Breast Cancer

Abstract

Background: Benefits and harms of screening mammography have been disputed in recent years. This fact, along with the limitations of mammography as well as its unavailability in all our medical centers, tempted us to evaluate the accuracy of thermography in detecting breast abnormalities. Patients and Methods: All patients who were candidates for breast biopsy were examined by both mammography and thermography before tissue sampling in a referral center between January 2013 and January 2014. We defined sensitivities and specificities, and positive predictive values (PPVs) and negative predictive values (NPVs), of the 2 modalities in comparison with histologic results as the gold standard. Results: 132 patients were included. The median age of all patients was 49.5 ± 10.3 years (range 24-75 years). The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy for mammography were 80.5%, 73.3%, 85.4%, 66.0%, and 76.9%, respectively, whereas for thermography the figures were 81.6%, 57.8%, 78.9%, 61.9%, and 69.7%, respectively. Conclusion: Our study confirms that, at the present time, thermography cannot substitute for mammography for the early diagnosis of breast cancer.

Thermal effect on dispersive infrared spectroscopic imaging of prostate cancer tissue

“…The higher the temperature, the more heat is being emitted by the object. Thermography has long been used for the detection of breast cancer by measuring the surface temperature of the breast . It is based on the idea that the temperature of lumps of cells is higher than surrounding normal tissue due to an increase in blood circulation in the former.…”

The influence of size, depth and histologic characteristics of invasive ductal breast carcinoma on thermographic properties of the breast

“…In addition, Omranipour et al (2016[27]) compared the sensitivity and specificity of mammography with thermography (80.5 %, 73.3 % and 81.6 %, 57.8 % respectively). In a similar study Prasad et al (2016[30]) found that breast malignancy was accurately detected in 60 patients (92.31 %) using thermography and 62 out of 65 patients (95.38 %) using MMG.…”

Zastosowanie termografii w medycynie – przegląd literatury

“…Jak dotąd wiele prób wykorzystania kamery termowizyjnej w medycynie dotyczyło diagnostyki raka piersi. W piśmiennictwie można znaleźć dane wskazujące, iż termografia może być pomocna do wyznaczenia granicy pomiędzy obszarem tkanki zdrowej a zajętym procesem nowotworowym [6,7,8]. We wszystkich przypadkach podkreślana jest jednak konieczność uzupełnienia diagnostyki i wykonania badań specjalistycznych, tj.…”