How does breast thermography compare to mammography and other imaging modalitites?
Breast thermography does not emit any radiation, require any injections, and is completely non-contact and pain-free. Breast thermography is based on detecting tumors through minute changes in vascular structure. These tumors and vascular structure emit more heat than normal tissue making them detectable with a high resolution, highly-sensitive infrared camera. Mammography uses x-rays to differentiate normal tissue from physical tumors and other breast abnormalities based on their densities. It detects tumors that are already of significant size (>1cm in most cases). There is a fair amount of difficulty in reading the mammograms of women who are on hormone replacement, are nursing, or have fibrocystic, large, dense, or enhanced breasts. These conditions do not cause difficulty in reading breast thermograms. Breast thermography signals, mammography locates, ultrasound confirms, and biopsy establishes diagnosis.
