Wahab Asnida Abd, Salim Maheza Irna Mohamad, Ahamat Mohamad Asmidzam, Manaf Noraida Abd, Yunus Jasmy, Lai Khin Wee
Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, University of Technology Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
Thermal Fluid Unit, HVACR Section, Malaysia France Institute, University of Kuala Lumpur, 43650, Selangor, Malaysia.
Med Biol Eng Comput. 2016 Sep;54(9):1363-73. doi: 10.1007/s11517-015-1403-7. Epub 2015 Oct 13.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women globally, and the number of young women diagnosed with this disease is gradually increasing over the years. Mammography is the current gold-standard technique although it is known to be less sensitive in detecting tumors in woman with dense breast tissue. Detecting an early-stage tumor in young women is very crucial for better survival chance and treatment. The thermography technique has the capability to provide an additional functional information on physiological changes to mammography by describing thermal and vascular properties of the tissues. Studies on breast thermography have been carried out to improve the accuracy level of the thermography technique in various perspectives. However, the limitation of gathering women affected by cancer in different age groups had necessitated this comprehensive study which is aimed to investigate the effect of different density levels on the surface temperature distribution profile of the breast models. These models, namely extremely dense (ED), heterogeneously dense (HD), scattered fibroglandular (SF), and predominantly fatty (PF), with embedded tumors were developed using the finite element method. A conventional Pennes' bioheat model was used to perform the numerical simulation on different case studies, and the results obtained were then compared using a hypothesis statistical analysis method to the reference breast model developed previously. The results obtained show that ED, SF, and PF breast models had significant mean differences in surface temperature profile with a p value <0.025, while HD breast model data pair agreed with the null hypothesis formulated due to the comparable tissue composition percentage to the reference model. The findings suggested that various breast density levels should be considered as a contributing factor to the surface thermal distribution profile alteration in both breast cancer detection and analysis when using the thermography technique.
乳腺癌是全球女性中最常见的癌症，并且近年来被诊断出患有这种疾病的年轻女性数量在逐渐增加。乳腺钼靶摄影是目前的金标准技术，尽管已知其在检测乳腺组织致密的女性中的肿瘤时敏感性较低。在年轻女性中检测早期肿瘤对于提高生存几率和治疗效果至关重要。热成像技术有能力通过描述组织的热特性和血管特性，为乳腺钼靶摄影提供有关生理变化的额外功能信息。已经从各种角度开展了关于乳腺热成像的研究，以提高热成像技术的准确性。然而，由于难以收集到不同年龄组受癌症影响的女性，因此有必要进行这项全面研究，旨在调查不同密度水平对乳腺模型表面温度分布轮廓的影响。这些模型，即极度致密（ED）、异质性致密（HD）、散在纤维腺性（SF）和主要为脂肪性（PF），带有嵌入肿瘤，是使用有限元方法开发的。使用传统的彭尼斯生物热模型对不同的案例进行数值模拟，然后使用假设统计分析方法将获得的结果与先前开发的参考乳腺模型进行比较。获得的结果表明，ED、SF和PF乳腺模型在表面温度轮廓上存在显著的平均差异，p值<0.025，而HD乳腺模型数据对由于其组织成分百分比与参考模型相当，与所提出的零假设相符。研究结果表明，在使用热成像技术进行乳腺癌检测和分析时，各种乳腺密度水平应被视为导致乳房表面热分布轮廓改变的一个因素。
