Breast thermography from an image processing viewpoint: A survey

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death among women. This fact justifies researches to reach early diagnosis, improving patients' life expectancy. Moreover, there are other pathologies, such as cysts and benign neoplasms that deserve investigation. In the last ten years, the infrared thermography has shown to be a promising technique to early diagnosis of breast pathologies. Works on this subject presented results that justify the thermography as a complementary exam to detect breast diseases. Several papers on the use of infrared imaging for breast screening can be found in the current medical literature. This survey explores and analyses these works in the light of their applications in computer vision. Consequently, the comments are organized according to the main steps of pattern recognition systems. These include: image acquisition protocols, exams storage, segmentation methods, feature extraction, classification or diagnostic and computer modelling. Main contributions of discussed papers are summarized in tables to provide a structured vision of the aspects involved in breast thermography. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.