I want to work in breast cancer detection through image processing.
Thank you madam. But some research articles are there in which thermal images are addressed for breast cancer detection. Is it possible to support for detection if a careful analysis is done in a controlled environment .?
Thermal imaging has been around in some form for more than 30 years. In each iteration there has been no evidence that this imaging technique is effective in screening or adds any additional value in the symptomatic setting. There are much better and more effective techniques for detecting breast cancer through screening and assessing symptomatic breast problems. If this technique was reliable and effective it would have been widely adopted by now.
We can identify the abnormality in breast, but we cannot conclude as cancer. So this tool can be used as adjunctive tool like ultrasound scan. Moreover locating the tumor in breast is very difficult in thermal imaging.
I began my career in France in 1976 and thermography was very fashionable at this period and rapidly appeared as totally unuseful. The French Society of Senoly of whom I'have been later one of the President wrote in this very old time for you that Thermography had no place in BC screening nor in diagnosis nor for pronostic evaluation.
Thank you sir.
i think the modality of this type is different from other breast cancer detection modality.So if thermal image is processed or analyzed in a different way, I think it is possible to get something meaningful. Because of its noninvasive nature it is better to do research in this area .
You can read the research carried out by U.Rajendra Acharya and Eddie. They have done many research in thermal images. Their profile link is given below
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eddie_Ng2
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/U_Rajendra_Acharya
As a retired breast cancer surgeon and as one who used thermography in his office I can tell you that breast thermography is severely lacking in sensitivity and specificity.
The medical literature has been overwhelming negative about breast thermography and rightfully so.
Current digital mammography, tomography and breast ultrasound are far superior to thermography, particularly in detecting early breast cancer.
Hello Mr. Muniasamy, did you get any idea on this since this discussion started 3 years ago?
Yes, Thermal images can support for detection of breast cancer , still the research is going on by experiment. Because the affected tissues in the breast emits a wave length which is different from normal tissue
- I can add to Daniel Serin answer that in Italy, in the same period, a researcher gathered more than 35.000 case studies in using thermography as a mean of screening in brest cancer detection but in Italy too the method was abandoned. I'm afraid that the field has been already fully investigated and walked out.
The method alone is not an identifier and diagnosis, but it is a risk assessor. No imaging exam is diagnostic. It is possible to observe variations and dysfunctions, but the form of analysis is not so simple, it is necessary to obtain basic data before any interpretation and conclusion. Consequently, as long as we do not have analyzes of the profile of the breast and chest in different phases and physiological states by means of thermography, no experiment will be able to interpret the data and generate a plausible conclusion, however the thermal imaging methodology has enormous potential to work if the researchers know how to analyze thermal data. I say this because of the experiences in recent and past work with breast cancer and other cancers and with comparative physiology and thermography.
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