A review of thermography as promising non-invasive detection modality for breast tumor

From the last 1.5 decades of complying with the strict standardized thermogram interpretation protocols by proper infrared trained personnel as documented in literature, breast thermography has achieved an average sensitivity and specificity of 90%. An abnormal thermogram is reported as the significant biological risk marker for the existence of or continues development of breast tumor. This review paper further discusses the performance and environmental requirements in characterizing thermography as being used for breast tumor screening under strict indoor controlled environmental conditions. The essential elements on performance requirements include display temperature color scale, display temperature resolution, emissivity setting, screening temperature range, workable target plane, response time and selection of critical parameters such as uniformity, minimum detectable temperature difference, detector pixels and drift between auto-adjustment. The paper however does not preclude users from potential errors and misinterpretations of the data derived from thermal imagers. © 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.