Breast Thermography as an Adjunct Tool to Monitor the Chemotherapy Response in a Triple Negative BIRADS V Cancer Patient: A Case Study

• Published in: IEEE transactions on medical imaging Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 737 - 745
• Main Authors: Singh, Deepika, Singh, Ashutosh Kumar, Tiwari, Sonia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.03.2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Breast; Breast - diagnostic imaging; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging; Breast Neoplasms - drug therapy; Breast thermogram; Cancer; Cancer screening; Cancer therapies; Chemotherapy; Developing countries; Female; Fractal analysis; fractal dimension; Heat treatment; Humans; invasive ductal-carcinoma; LDCs; Mammography; Medical screening; Monitoring; neoadjuvant chemotherapy; Patients; Prospective Studies; Radiation; Rural populations; Statistical analysis; statistical features; Surface temperature; Thermal analysis; Thermography; Thermography - methods; Tumors
• ISSN: 0278-0062; 1558-254X
• DOI: 10.1109/TMI.2021.3122565

Prior studies have reported that breast thermography is a potential adjunct tool to mammography in early cancer detection, especially in developing countries with limited medical facilities. This non-invasive, safe, and painless screening tool can reduce the mortality due to cancer by early detection and monitoring. This prospective study aims to analyze changes in static breast thermograms of a BIRADS V category breast cancer patient to assess the response to Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in locally advanced cancer and to compare with thermograms of a BIRADS II category benign patient. Breast thermograms of the malignant and benign patients in five different views were taken using FLIR E40 thermal camera under strict acquisition protocols. Details of the patient along with the thermograms were recorded pre and post NACT. There is a qualitative reduction in the warm region of the surface after the first cycle of chemotherapy treatment. Thermal, fractal, and statistical analysis of thermograms is performed for both patients. In the patient with aggressive ductal carcinoma, the difference in the mean surface temperature between contralateral breasts is high, which is reduced after the first cycle of NACT. This preliminary study indicates that breast thermography can potentially be used as an effective non-invasive, non-contact, and radiation-free tool to analyze the effect of NACT on patients with different stages of breast cancer. This study also signifies the role of the thermography technique in reaching a largely rural population with limited medical resources for early cancer screening.