Thermal Grading Scale for Classification of Breast Thermograms

Thermography is a physiological look and pictorial recording of the skin temperature which has significant contribution in detecting breast cancer, since 1957. Thermography is a potential tool to reduce breast cancer mortality by detecting at an early stage. The biggest advantage of this technique is non-invasive and innocuous. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved (in the year 1982) thermography as an adjuvant screening tool for breast cancer. Accuracy of the screening to detect cancer early highly depends on interpretation of the thermograms. Progression of this technique as diagnostic tool is very less due to lack of standardization in imaging protocol worldwide and interpretation system. Interpreting the image is the key to know the quality of subject's health. Interpretation of thermograms for differentiating benign and malignant neoplasm is crucial in identifying features in the image towards the diagnosis. To address the lack of standardization in interpretation of breast images taken from thermography and to ensure uniformity of the report, classification or grading or scoring system is necessary. In this paper authors have proposed a new innovative Indian thermal grading/scoring scale based on quantitative and qualitative parameters including feature analysis, temperature difference and risk factors. The grading/scoring scale has been successfully applied to 75 cases and validated using concurrent sonography and mammography reports. This paper also provide statistically analyzes of the thermal grading/scoring scale for breast thermograms to classify normal, fibroadenoma and cancer subjects for the above mentioned cases.

Automated summary

Thermography is a non-invasive approach for breast cancer screening, aiming to detect the disease early through interpretation of thermal images. However, the lack of standardization in imaging protocols and interpretation systems worldwide has limited the progression of this technique.