How Accurate Is Thermography?

The challenge today is that women want to monitor breast health without mammography. They believe that choosing thermography will provide them with a non-contact, non-invasive way to detect early changes and not need mammography at all. I'm sorry -- but that is not the truth, regardless of how hard we want to believe that thermography is the answer, it is only one way to look at the breast changes over time. Thermography is physiology and physiology is ever-changing. Mammography is structure - and once the structure changes - its visible by x-ray, which is the energy level that mammography measures. The 'efficacy of detection with thermography is 87-92%' based on the current meta-analysis. Mammography is 75% - 95% accurate based on the meta-analysis of studies. But BEWARE - they are NOT comparable tests.

Recently I've had a few clients, who regularly participate in thermography and mammography, come back with diagnoses of cancer in what we reported as a stable or negative thermogram. They are told that "thermography is wrong and dangerous” that only mammography will find early cancer." This statement can be true and false. False in that thermography is wrong and dangerous. The body does not lie. If there is a thermal abnormality there is something happening. Thermography finds changes that are related to the physiological stimulus of blood flow in the region. Many things besides cancer can stimulate changes in blood flow - including hormones and medications. Mammography detects the dead cells - or castings of cells that are left. This can be DCIS - in the duct, spiculations in the tissue, or changes in the tissue density. Often they will report you as having "cancer" with DCIS - as the common practice in medicine is to remove DCIS because it CAN be transformed into invasive cancer and they don't know if or when. Thermally - DCIS is most often not chemically active. It will not exhibit a thermal signal. Additionally - we often find the opposite breast is demonstrating signals of suspicious change and the mammogram finds nothing in the stimulated breast, but suspicious changes in the opposite breast. Why is this? We are one body. Chemistry is not isolated. The breasts operate together. There is a commone blood supply and connecting blood and lymph. Also, DCIS is frequently found in multiple sites and has a high probability of being in both breasts. Years ago they usually did a mirror biopsy in the contra lateral breast of DCIS or invasive breast cancer - because the statistics of that cancer being in the opposite breast are higher than not. That is not done as often today. Standard medical practitioners believe that mammography is sensitive enough to see the contra lateral change. But why the thermal signal in the contra lateral breast? Because radiologist won't use thermography to monitor change - we don't have recent comparative studies to say the signal came and went prior to the structural change. We do know that enzymes in the tissue contribute to the conversion of normal to invasive cells and that that is early in the process of cancerous change -- and it is postulated that thermography is catching the chemical reaction that is taking place prior to the structural change. Without comparative studies we will not get that answer. What we do know from studies conducted - and those studies include large population of thousands of patients - is that thermography is the best indicator of RISK. Serial (or changes over time) thermograms demonstrate a higher RISK than the presence of Family History of breast cancer, and other statistical factors. Watching non-invasively can help make shifts in lifestyle (cancer causes are known to be 85% lifestyle) and help postpone or avoid future changes to cancer. But your medical doctor will not have the time, or the desire to help you do this. Changing lifestyle is an individual responsibility. So is thermography wrong and mammography right? This depends on what you intend. Do you want to monitor yourself JUST for breast cancer? Then mammography is your test. It will not detect the chemistry, or the hormone shifts, or the changing blood flow of disease. Mammography usually detects a cancer that is already growing. PERIOD.

If you want to do any preventative action – then monitoring hormone changes and risk with thermography will improve your outcome. So it’s a big decision. If you don’t want to initiate lifestyle changes – maintaining appropriate body mass index for your size, and age, monitoring for influence of endocrine imbalance, and other physiological changes, then a mammogram every two years should be done. Don’t waste your time and money with thermography. But you must also realize that thermography – just like mammography, will not detect EVERY cancer. Thermography will not detect DCIS. So educate yourself on how you want to deal with a breast cancer IF you were to receive that diagnosis. Understanding the choices you have BEFORE is very important. Otherwise you’ll be making very difficult choices in a VERY SHORT TIME. Medical doctors will want you to have a biopsy and surgery within days of a questionable mammogram. The faster they get you to the table the less time you have to think about it and back out. So better to understand options before you’re under the knife. Many women regret getting pushed into surgeries and treatment without having prior understanding of outcome and possibly damaging results they can’t UNDO after the fact. Don’t be intimidated. Do not be rushed. Understand the choices you have and the potential of the outcome EITHER WAY.

Thermography is a non-invasive way to monitor physiologic changes and change over time. Mammogram examines the structure. Apples and oranges -- these two tests CAN NOT BE COMPARED.

I make a point to educate every woman who comes for thermography about the risk and benefits of both tests. I provide information and education. So basically it becomes a choice of how much do you want to know, when do you want to know it, and how will you make choices IF or WHEN you receive a diagnosis of breast cancer – whether its DCIS (which historically was NOT a true cancer - only hyperplasia) or another more challenging aspect of the disease.