Diagnostic value of infrared thermography in breast cancer, and in proliferative and non proliferative mastopathies.

The authors present the results of breast examinations in 201 female patients controlled by cytology and histology. Based on their results obtained by an AGA 680 type infrared thermography, their conclusion was that the method is primarily suitable for the examination of biological thermogenesis, one of the functional characteristics of tumours. Some T1 breast cancer of the same histological type are thermographically "silent", i.e. display no pathological alterations. Thermographical signs characteristic of carcinomas are to be found only in 60-70% of the cases. It is explained by the biological heterogeneity of tumours, i.e. the amount of heat generated by the metabolic processes of the different carcinomas is not equal, as well as they are different in vascularization and as a consequence of it in their heat conduction parameters. Similar reasons explain the appearance of different thermographic patterns--negative or characteristic of cancerous alterations--in proliferative mastopathies.