A Review of Breast Thermography

Note: The following is not a comprehensive review of the literature. Over 30 years of research compiling over 800 studies in the index-medicus exist. What follows is a pertinent sample review of the research concerning the clinical application of diagnostic infrared imaging (thermography) for use in breast cancer screening. All the citations are taken from the index-medicus peer-reviewed research literature or medical textbooks. The authors are either PhD's with their doctorate in a representative field, or physicians primarily in the specialties of oncology, radiology, gynecology, and internal medicine. The following list is a summary of the informational text that follows: • In 1982, the FDA approved breast thermography as an adjunctive diagnostic breast cancer screening procedure. Breast thermography has undergone extensive research since the late 1950's. • Over 800 peer-reviewed studies on breast thermography exist in the index-medicus literature. • In this database, well over 300,000 women have been included as study participants. • The numbers of participants in many studies are very large-- 10K, 37K, 60K, 85K… • Some of these studies have followed patients up to 12 years. • Strict standardized interpretation protocols have been established for over 15 years. • Breast thermography has an average sensitivity and specificity of 90%. • An abnormal thermogram is 10 times more significant as a future risk indicator for breast cancer than a first order family history of the disease. • A persistent abnormal thermogram caries with it a 22x higher risk of future breast cancer. • An abnormal infrared image is the single most important marker of high risk for developing breast cancer. • Breast thermography has the ability to detect the first signs that a cancer may be forming up to 10 years before any other procedure can detect it. • Extensive clinical trials have shown that breast thermography significantly augments the long-term survival rates of its recipients by as much as 61%. • When used as part of a multimodal approach (clinical examination + mammography + thermography) 95 % of early stage cancers will be detected