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Breast Implants and Thermography
Currently, it is estimated that between 5 and 10 million women worldwide have had breast implant surgery. The FDA continues to recommend annual screening mammograms to these women, despite an increase in mammography's false negative rates (from 33% for women without implants, up to 55% for those with implants) and the associated risks of rupture and decrease in the overall life of the implants.
Thermal imaging (thermography), which has been studied since the 1960's, is an early warning tool for identifying tissue in which tumors are more likely to emerge. The advantage, to being able to identify high risk breast tissue, is essentially breast cancer prevention. Early identification offers the time for dietary and lifestyle changes to be made, thus preventing future disease. And this can be very empowering to women.
While thermal imaging is not approved as a substitute for mammography, detecting a tumor with mammography should not be considered breast cancer prevention. On average, a tumor has been growing for 5-8 years, by the time it is large enough to be detected on mammogram. By examining breast tissue with an infra-red thermal image camera, early tissue changes, which are associated with later developing breast cancers, can often be reversed, preventing the progression of disease.
While they are two completely different forms of imaging, with thermography providing the physiological information and mammography visualizing the anatomical changes, it is this monitoring of physiology that establishes thermal imaging as the key component in breast cancer prevention, because physiology almost always identifies changes first, well before anatomy changes occur .
As an FDA approved adjunct to mammography, thermal imaging makes sense as a risk free prevention tool that can be offered to women of all ages, especially those who have rejected mammography because of its radiation exposure, associated pain and fear of implant rupture.
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