Comparison of the Sensitivity and Specificity Between Mammography and Thermography in Breast Cancer Detection

Early detection of breast cancer is a critical part of the strategy to improve diagnosis and reduce the mortality caused by this disease. Benefits and damages of screening tests have been discussed in recent years. Those discussions, along the limitations of mammography and its unavailability to our medical centers, made us evaluate the accuracy of thermography on detecting breast abnormalities. Advances in thermography technology associated with tools for improving image analysis have shown positive results so they could become a reliable tool. The objectives of this research were to verify the thermal behavior malignant or non-malignant tumor, and to compare the sensitivity and specificity of mammography imaging exams (MMG), besides the infrared thermography (TMG). There were 25 volunteers involved in the study, who performed both tests mentioned above and the biopsy (gold standard for breast cancer diagnosis). A dynamic protocol was performed with the application of skin cooling method as the images were analyzed after eight minutes of reheating. The participants are on average 49.5 years old and 72% had dense breasts. The temperatures in the tumoral regions and the thermal densities was higher in malignant tumors than benign tumors. The sensitivity and specificity for mammography were 73% and 70%, respectively and, for thermography, 83% and 74%, respectively. The results of this study show that thermography has the potential to be used as an aid to mammography in the early diagnosis of breast cancer.