Development of Second Generation Thermography with Computerized Image Analysis for Breast Cancer Diagnosis

We proposed to integrate second generation infrared thermography, real time image analysis and patient information stored in a medical database into the risk assessment for breast cancer patients, detection and diagnosis of breast cancer and prognostic determination for breast cancer patients. Previous attempts to use first generation thermographic instruments showed that the results were applicable to the detection, diagnosis, and the risk assessment of breast cancer. However, the high false positive rate of approximately 25% for detection of breast cancer with first generation thermography prevented its acceptance by the medical community. We expect to lower the false positive rate, increase the positive predictive value and increase the negative predictive value of breast thermography by combining second generation infrared thermography, which has greater sensitivity and real time analysis, which improves the specificity. As second generation thermographic instrumentation is brought into the medical diagnostic arena, there will be the natural expansion of its application to other types of cancer (e.g. melanoma) for risk assessment, detection, diagnosis, and a sa prognostic indicator. Creation of highly portable databases will allow patients to carry their thermographic images and image analysis results with them so that serial analysis (comparison of previous to current thermographic results) can easily be done for detection and monitoring of a wide spectrum of diseases.