title: Breast thermography. A prognostic indicator for breast cancer survival.
abstract: A prognostic classification for thermographic staging of breast cancer has been applied to a cohort of 70 patients from 5040 screenees enrolled in the Albert Einstein Medical Center (AEMC) Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project (BCDDP). A diagnosis of breast cancer was established in each case before December 31, 1980. None of the patients have been lost to follow-up which extended from a minimum of 6 to a maximum of 13 years. Survival rates for those with favorable, equivocal, and poor thermographic factors are compared with each other and with results in accordance with tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) classification. As of December 31, 1986, there have been 22 (31.4%) deaths, all attributed to breast cancer. The thermographic scoring system clearly shows shorter survival for patients with poor thermographic prognostic factors, 30% surviving at 5 years and only 20% at 10 years compared with overall survival of 80% at 5 years and 70% at 10 years.
authors.affiliation: Gershon-Cohen Breast Imaging Center, Department of Radiology, Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19141.
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Isard
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Sweitzer
authors.forename: G R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Edelstein
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D013817:Thermography