title: Comparative Multifractal Analysis of Dynamic Infrared Thermograms and X-Ray Mammograms Enlightens Changes in the Environment of Malignant Tumors.
abstract: There is growing evidence that the microenvironment surrounding a tumor plays a special role in cancer development and cancer therapeutic resistance. Tumors arise from the dysregulation and alteration of both the malignant cells and their environment. By providing tumor-repressing signals, the microenvironment can impose and sustain normal tissue architecture. Once tissue homeostasis is lost, the altered microenvironment can create a niche favoring the tumorigenic transformation process. A major challenge in early breast cancer diagnosis is thus to show that these physiological and architectural alterations can be detected with currently used screening techniques. In a recent study, we used a 1D wavelet-based multi-scale method to analyze breast skin temperature temporal fluctuations collected with an IR thermography camera in patients with breast cancer. This study reveals that the multifractal complexity of temperature fluctuations superimposed on cardiogenic and vasomotor perfusion oscillations observed in healthy breasts is lost in malignant tumor foci in cancerous breasts. Here we use a 2D wavelet-based multifractal method to analyze the spatial fluctuations of breast density in the X-ray mammograms of the same panel of patients. As compared to the long-range correlations and anti-correlations in roughness fluctuations, respectively observed in dense and fatty breast areas, some significant change in the nature of breast density fluctuations with some clear loss of correlations is detected in the neighborhood of malignant tumors. This attests to some architectural disorganization that may deeply affect heat transfer and related thermomechanics in breast tissues, corroborating the change to homogeneous monofractal temperature fluctuations recorded in cancerous breasts with the IR camera. These results open new perspectives in computer-aided methods to assist in early breast cancer diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Physical Foundation of Strength, Institute of Continuous Media Mechanics UB RAS Perm, Russia.
authors.forename: Evgeniya
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gerasimova-Chechkina
authors.affiliation: CompuMAINE Laboratory, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maine Orono, ME, USA.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Toner
authors.affiliation: CompuMAINE Laboratory, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maine Orono, ME, USA.
authors.forename: Zach
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Marin
authors.affiliation: Université Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Physique Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Audit
authors.affiliation: Université Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Physique Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Stephane G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Roux
authors.affiliation: Université Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de PhysiqueLyon, France; Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Bordeaux, UMR 5798Talence, France.
authors.forename: Francoise
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Argoul
authors.affiliation: CompuMAINE Laboratory, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maine Orono, ME, USA.
authors.forename: Andre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khalil
authors.affiliation: Department of Therapeutic and Propedeutic Dentistry, Perm State Medical University Perm, Russia.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Gileva
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Physical Foundation of Strength, Institute of Continuous Media Mechanics UB RAS Perm, Russia.
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Naimark
authors.affiliation: Université Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de PhysiqueLyon, France; Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Bordeaux, UMR 5798Talence, France.
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arneodo
keywords: X-ray mammograms; breast cancer; dynamic IR thermograms; multifractal analysis; wavelet transform modulus maxima method