This article may be helpful with this quesiton, brengoldie.

http://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/20110603b

FDA Says Thermography Shouldn’t Be Substituted for Mammograms

Published on June 3, 2011 at 12:00 am

Last modified on May 3, 2013 at 1:50 pm

• TOPIC: Screening and Testing
• TAGS: Thermography

In June 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned doctors that thermography shouldn't be a substitute for mammograms and other proven breast imaging technology for screening and diagnosing breast cancer.

Thermography, also called thermal imaging, uses an infrared camera to make images of the amount of blood flow and heat in tissue near the breast surface.

Thermography is based on two ideas:

• Because cancer cells are growing and multiplying very fast, blood flow and metabolism are higher in a cancer tumor.
• As blood flow and metabolism increase, skin temperature goes up.

In the 1980s, the FDA approved using thermography to get more information about breast cancers that had already been diagnosed with a mammogram or other traditional technology. Thermography was never approved to be used as a substitute for mammograms or other breast cancer screening tests.

No study has shown that thermography is a good screening tool to detect breast cancer early, when the cancer is most treatable. Thermography can't find cancers that are deeper in the breast and can't detect small cancers. Still, a number of doctors around the United States have been promoting thermography as a good or even better alternative to mammograms for breast cancer screening and diagnosis.

The FDA warning about thermography is not related to any safety concerns about thermographic devices. Thermography may help doctors get more information about a breast cancer that has already been diagnosed. But thermography should NOT be used as an alternative to regular mammograms for breast cancer screening.

You can learn more about the tests doctors can use for breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and monitoring in the Breastcancer.org Screening and Testing section.

Although I believe it is risky, I would never give up yearly mammograms because that is how my BC was diagnosed. I do alternate with thermography in hopes that it might pick up something prior to it showing up on a mammo.

Melissa, thanks for posting. I had read something similar a while back, when I had gone researching on this topic. Apparently the evidence just is not there.

Why would the difference in cost be relevant if the testing is proven to be ineffective and irrelevant? Paying anything for a worthless test sounds really expensive to me.

My DIL, who posts every article she finds on alternative therapies, just posted an article on her Facebook page on Thermography.

She also posted about how she will NEVER have another mammogram (she's in her mid 40's), since Thermography is so much safer (and since mammograms cause cancer!!!!!!!)....

I tried to be gentle when I posted back, pointing out that Thermography has been shown time and time again to miss cancers that other diagnostic tools pick up. I think that the last study showed that it picked up 38% of cancers, where mammograms picked up more than 80% of cancers. 

Thermography was never, ever designed to be used solely as a screening tool, but rather in conjunction with other, more traditional diagnostic procedures including ultrasounds.

(And I can't believe she posts these things knowing how I feel and what I've been through!)

I absolutely believe in Alternative and Complementary therapies, and I do try to always keep an open mind, but not when there is such evidence to the contrary. 

Kaara - That is very interesting. I used to get them along with other screening. How large was your tumor? You are the first person I've heard of diagnosed with a thermo.

lucy,

This was on high risk women with genetic disposition or family history, but may be of some help in that it compares the sensitivity and specificity of MRIs versus mammograms: 

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa031759#t=articleDiscussion

In this prospective study, we compared the efficacy of mammographic and MRI screening for breast cancer in women with a family history of the disease or a genetic predisposition to breast cancer. Among the women examined by both methods at the same screening visit, we detected 45 breast cancers (including 6 ductal carcinomas in situ): 32 by MRI (sensitivity, 71.1 percent) and 18 by mammography (40.0 percent); five other patients were excluded from this comparison for various reasons (Table 3). Thus, the sensitivity of MRI was higher than that of mammography, but both the specificity and positive predictive value of MRI were lower.

In our sensitivity and specificity calculations, we defined lesions that were in BI-RADS category 3 and higher as positive, but most other authors have included in their calculations only lesions in BI-RADS categories 4 and 5 as positive.21,33,34 If we had followed that policy, the sensitivity would have been 24.4 percent for mammography and 46.6 percent for MRI, in accord with the higher sensitivity previously reported for MRI.21,33,35,36 However, the previous studies enrolled small groups of women, included some retrospective data,35 evaluated heterogeneous groups that included women with previous breast cancers,21,33,36 or had a plan for follow-up after a suspicious finding on MRI that differed from the follow-up plan for a suspicious mammographic finding.33 All these factors might have artificially increased the sensitivity of MRI. We also investigated sensitivity in relation to specificity as determined by ROC curves, showing that the area under the curve was significantly higher for MRI than for mammography; this means that MRI screening could better discriminate between malignant and benign cases.

When we included only invasive breast cancers, the difference between the sensitivity of the MRI and mammography (79.5 percent vs. 33.3 percent) was even greater than the difference overall (71.1 percent vs. 40.0 percent). MRI detected 20 cancers (including 1 ductal carcinoma in situ) that were not found by mammography or clinical breast examination. The stage of these 20 cancers was favorable; 11 of the 19 invasive tumors were smaller than 10 mm, and only 1 was associated with a positive node.

Another important matter that we addressed was the best method for detecting carcinoma in situ. Our study showed that mammography had a higher sensitivity than MRI for detecting ductal carcinoma in situ: 83 percent (five out of six cancers detected), as compared with 17 percent (one out of six) for MRI (P=0.22).

Found this, too: http://www.cadth.ca/media/pdf/I3010_MRI-Breast-Cancer_tr_e.pdf

farmerlucydaisy:  You misunderstood (perhaps I didn't explain it properly)  I was diag with a mammogram...not a thermo, which is why I would always continue to have at least one mammo yearly, alternating with thermo.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Farmerlucy, my understanding is that it can only pick up things that are close to the skin/surface.

I had a different kind of Thermography last week, European Thermography. It was done with a wand and took readings two times at 100 points in the body, once at normal temperature and another after I stood in a slightly chilly room.

Anyway, it tested reaction before and after and showed blocked and/ or inflamed areas. Seems like it's most helpful for finding health issues overall rather than catching breast cancer specifically.

I still have to meet with a natural doc that can help me better understand the results, but it seems like it will be useful information.

Has anyone else had this type of Thermography?