Proof that Thermography does not diagnose Breast Cancer

suzieq60

A woman here in Australia had a thermography scan and was given the all clear. Some months later she was diagnosed with breast cancer by normal methods ie mammo. She then went back for another thermography and guess what - all clear. Absolute proof Thermography is not effective.

http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article/8993852/breast-scan

 

juneping

When the conventional tx fail It's the patient who can't make it. That's just life....

When the alt tx fail it's the tx fault. And it deserves broadcasting. When the alt tx works...well the person is just lucky

leggo

"A Current Affair"? Seriously?

AlaskaAngel

Common sense still prevails in some places, in spite of the odds. Thanks, juneping!

suzieq60

I just wanted to point out that Thermography is not all it's cracked up to be.

As for the name of the program Current Affair - what's wrong with that - they deal with Current Affairs - and I do not watch it at all - just watched because of the lead on the breast cancer issue.

BrooksideVT

June, I know you are aware that these boards and the media in general are full of warnings that mammograms and other mainstream diagnostics are not foolproof. Don't you feel it is important that we understand the advantages and the limitations of both traditional and alternative treatments? I am always grateful to understand the, shall we say, range, of applicability of the different diagnostic procedures.

I, for one, am shocked at the absolute absence of any indication of cancer in the particular thermograph, and am surprised by the position of the clinic and its administrator that the technique is part of a wellness exam, that it is not meant to be diagnostic, and would not have been offered if the patient had been aware that she had breast cancer. I'd always thought thermography could be pretty reliable, and that it was normally positioned as useful for diagnosis and for following progress or progression.

I know thermography works in some circumstances and wonder whether the patient has a low grade cancer with a level one mitosis rate, and whether a more aggressive cancer would have been more likely to have generated the heat required for imaging?

leggo

"Like its main rival broadcast on the Seven Network, Today Tonight, A Current Affair is often considered by media critics and the public at large to use sensationalist journalism – as depicted in the parody television show Frontline – and to deliberately present advertising as editorial content".

You can google for the no less than 50 law suits for inaccurate reporting, defamation, fabricated and falsified reports. It's the television equivelant of News of the World or the National Enquirer....."Woman gives birth to martian", or getting your medical news from Brian Williams (sorry couldn't resist mentioning him, 'cos it's about the funniest thing ever!)

suzieq60

I agree Current Affair is a sensationalist program BUT they didn't fake the whole segment - it really happened and the woman really has breast cancer and the thermography really did not work.

leggo

Nuh-uh. You tell your story to A Current Affair, you lose all credibility. There must be a reason she chose that venue to tell her story, true or not.

Italychick

I had a failed thermography test. It said I had breast cancer in my right breast (I do not), and said my left breast was 100% fine (it was not, 1.3 cm. IDC admixed with DCIS). So whether A Current Affair is legitimate, whacko or sensationalist, for me, thermography failed.

Momine

I thought it was fairly well established that thermography can only pick up things close to the "surface," i.e. right under the skin. That would logically mean that it would be bad at detecting something like breast cancer, unless someone had Keira Knightley boobage. That is presumably also why the clinic only calls it a wellness check, because legally they can't claim that it has any diagnostic value.

leggo

That I believe Italychick (unless I see you on A Current Affair) of course. Maybe they offered her time with Dr. Phil or "his son Jay's publishing company" or its Australian equivelant

Italychick

Leggo, lol! No, you will not be seeing this bald, fat (gotta love steroids and chemo), scarred up body on any TV program. I really wanted thermography to work, but it did not. It would be so nice to have something that wasn't as invasive to the body. I'm leaning to trying to do ultrasound follow-ups, but I suspect my MO will want more than that.

Momine, I believe my growth was closer to the surface of my skin, and even though the facility had done an ultrasound and knew it was there, when they did the thermography, nothing.

BrooksideVT

Italychick, I'm wondering what they said about the thermograph not showing the known tumor?

Italychick

They apologized and said they messed up the thermography and offered to re-do it free of charge. But by the time they told me, weeks later, I had already sucked it up and done a diagnostic mammogram (which I did not want to do) and an ultrasound and was scheduled for surgery. They said it had something to do with the air flow in the room causing improper results. I found out three weeks after the test was done, and it was done by what I thought was a fairly reputable integrative clinic in Irvine, Ca. They are recommended on the Chris beat cancer website and do both alternative and traditional treatments which is why I went to them because I wanted to know both options, traditional and alternative.

Trust me, if something alternative works, I am so there. I went to the traditional approach because of the sloppiness of their approach, plus the time it took me to get any results from them. I was terrified and didn't want to take a risk with the cancer spreading and risking my life. They also did an ultrasound which came back with a Bi-Rads rating of 0 because they said without a mammogram they couldn't tell me anything. They never told me that at the time and cost me a month of waiting to get appropriate treatment.

I so want to believe in alternative approaches, but I haven't found any alternative center (have been to several) that don't embrace the approach of well let's try this approach and see if it works. How will I know if it works

SpecialK

This is an older thread but has some posts from members who used thermography:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/67/topic/755505?page=1#post_2927509

 

juneping

suzie, my point being mammo is not fool proof but you don't see people make a big deal out of it. everything about alt is being scrutinized and magnified.

personally i know two ppl died because conventional didn't work. did ppl blame chemo?? hello no. that's my point.

Momine

Actually, if you visit the ILC forum, you will see a LOT of talk about the shortcomings of mammos. For ILC, ultrasound is sometimes better, but MRI is considered the most reliable. MRI is of course quite invasive, so the whole thing is problematic if you have ILC. Let's say I am glad I razed the rack.

suzieq60

Momine - MRI is not invasive - it 's sound waves. So you have an injection but I like it - the only problem is it is too sensitive.

Junepig - I know a mammo is not full proof but it's the best we have. I have mammo and ultrasound and I'm happy with that. I stopped having MRI's because of the expense.

Momine

I meant the contrast etc. All the same, most docs avoid repeated MRIs in a short timeframe. I like ultrasounds. If the doctor holding the wand is good and experienced much can be learned from an ultrasound.

BrooksideVT

June, you absolutely do see people making a big deal about the limitations of mammograms. You see it all over the media and all over these boards. I, for one, was absolutely shocked when the radiologist (in an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center) not only showed me the tumor as it appeared in my mammo, but then walked me back through the "normal" scans from the two previous years, where the tumor was visible, but only because its location was now known. True, the "noise" out there is 99% about the benefits and importance of screening, so perhaps the negatives are hugely overpowered, but they are definitely there. Before my personal experience I assumed a near 100% accuracy in my imaging. Now I make a mental note every time I hear about either the limitations of mammo, or the advantages of, for instance, the new 3-D imaging, and I hope others do as well.

One point I think important is that the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional is known, because of huge amounts of available data. This is simply not yet true about, for instance, thermography. The woman in the video assumed (as I did with those early mammos) that an all-clear was an all-clear. I am sure she had read and signed a disclosure indicating that her thermogram could not be considered a diagnostic tool, and had probably listened to a verbal caution to that effect, but the power of the picture enormously overshadowed those caveats, as it probably would for any of us.

I'm not being negative about thermography, just positive about investigating its limitations as well as its advantages, and doing a mental side-by-side with traditional imaging, and then with actual images. If your personal tumor reveals itself in both, all to the good. If it appears in one but not the other, well, more investigation is called for. Conventional or alt, it seems to me that, regardless of diagnosis or the approach, the basis of treatment is an accurate diagnoses, followed by accurate tracking of the disease process or its reversal.

Because of my experience, I'm pretty negative about the current guidelines' advice that older women can have mammos every two years. I am very glad I did not skip my 2012 imaging!

NancyHB

Mamms have significant limitations. In my case my cancer is in a place not viewable with mammogram (on the far right side of my left breast). No amount of wiggling, twisting, turning or standing on my head could get the area into the mammogram machine. Onward to US - which came back Birads 3. So I don't have a lot of faith in current screening techniques, and I say so frequently. My dear friend had three years of Mamms and US for an area she could palpate but was never seen; an MRI finally picked up her 5cm ILC.

Sorry, June - not all of us trust currently "conventional" screening techniques, even if we tend to follow a conventional path. Hopefully, our outrage will fuel changes to current standards. Nothing is perfect, but we need something better

SelenaWolf

Mammograms are not foolproof and, I believe, that that fact has been well-established. That's why mammogram-ultrasound-biopsy are used together to diagnose breast cancer. A mammogram tells you if something is there, an ultrasound tells you whether that something is solid or fluid, and a biopsy tells you what it is. As brookside pointed out above, there has been much discussion- and analysis on these boards as to the efficacy of screening/diagnostic mammograms and most of us - myself included - believe that they remain the best screening tool so far.

That said, my screening mammograms were all negative leading up to my finding a lump; the last "all clear" I got was a mere five months prior. My diagnostic mammogram was inconclusive because of dense breast tissue. But the addition of an ultrasound and biopsy provided a clear diagnosis of IDC. So, screening mammograms alone failed me, but I'm not going to through screening mammograms under the bus, because there was a clear reason (dense breast tissue) why - in my situation - it was more complicated and I realize that.

I, also, feel strongly that alternative methods need to be held up to the same scientific scrutiny as conventional. We need to know what works and what doesn't in both approaches. We need to know if combining certain conventional approaches with alternative ones (or vice versa) provides better outcomes. If thermography doesn't work as well as mammography for detecting breast cancer, we need to know that. That doesn't mean that mammography is fool-proof (far from it!), only that it is better than thermography.

leggo

Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I called the thermography place in my city to get some details, because I have zero experience with it. Quote "we only take clients referred by physicians. Those for whom a mammogram may not be the best choice. All results are forwarded to your physician for further evaluation." So summing it up, A CURRENT AFFAIR LADY is just another shill to me. Australia, I believe is also run through socialized medicine (and Suzie can correct me if I'm wrong on that point) so I can assume things are run there, similar to how they are run here. Doctors just don't send you for a breast thermography without a reason because of the expense. She probably "chose" it, got angry about her out-of-pocket cost, didn't get the results she was going for and decided to go for her 15 minutes, on a rag news show, none the less.

suzieq60

You do not need a referral from a doctor to have thermography here and it's extremely unlikely our Medicare would pay any of the cost as it is not an approved method of breast screening.

vespersparrow

Italychick, so it sounds like your thermography *might* have worked just fine if the tech hadn't screwed up the air flow and affected the camera's ability to see the vascular pattens, is that right? It's not thermography's fault if that happened. I'd like to see more research $$$ and training go into thermography to reduce these kinds of false results and give us clearer expectations of this modality. The less invasive the better IMO (unless you are a radiologist who's invested in a mammography machine, I suppose...)

vespersparrow

Kayb, I didn't see if they were able to exclude DCIS diagnoses from the meta-analysis. Did you? Thermography openly states it may fail with a non-vascularized tumor. I am using it to monitor myself for neovascularizations, not necessarily tumors, and at least my MO backed my up on that logic.

leggo

I didn't read it kayb, mostly because it didn't apply to my country. I do think, though, it has its place in screening options in certain situations. Now this really doesn't apply to me because my diagnosis didn't go down that way, but if I had a big old honkin' tumor in my breast, there's no way I'd be smashing it in that squishy machine so it can ooze cancer cells all over the place. I know this is going to sound naive and illogical and someone will surely be by shortly to tell me that's not how it works, but in my head it makes perfect sense.

leggo

To clarify kayb, I meant I didn't have a mammogram with my Stage 3 diagnosis. Wasn't ordered in my case, so I didn't have to play that mind game with myself. I really should update my profile so people know what I'm talking about. Sorry for the confusion.

suzieq60

Kayb - I did read the study - enlightening to say the least.

Not to read a study because it's from a different country? Is that saying research in Australia or NZ is ineffective and that only the US counts?

vespersparrow

Kayb, I think the key is if the vascularity changes over time. It would be good to know how many of the women with false positives had baselines.