title: Comparison of the Accuracy of Thermography and Mammography in the Detection of Breast Cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Benefits and harms of screening mammography have been disputed in recent years. This fact, along with the limitations of mammography as well as its unavailability in all our medical centers, tempted us to evaluate the accuracy of thermography in detecting breast abnormalities.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients who were candidates for breast biopsy were examined by both mammography and thermography before tissue sampling in a referral center between January 2013 and January 2014. We defined sensitivities and specificities, and positive predictive values (PPVs) and negative predictive values (NPVs), of the 2 modalities in comparison with histologic results as the gold standard.
  
  
  RESULTS
  132 patients were included. The median age of all patients was 49.5 ± 10.3 years (range 24-75 years). The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy for mammography were 80.5%, 73.3%, 85.4%, 66.0%, and 76.9%, respectively, whereas for thermography the figures were 81.6%, 57.8%, 78.9%, 61.9%, and 69.7%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study confirms that, at the present time, thermography cannot substitute for mammography for the early diagnosis of breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ramesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Omranipour
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiotherapy Oncology, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kazemian
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Sadaf
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alipour
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Masoume
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Najafi
authors.affiliation: Medical Thermography Department, Fanavaran Madoone Ghermez Company, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mansour
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alidoosti
authors.affiliation: Medical Thermography Department, Fanavaran Madoone Ghermez Company, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mitra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Navid
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Afsaneh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alikhassi
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Nasrin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ahmadinejad
authors.affiliation: Breast Clinic, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Khojasteh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bagheri
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Shahrzad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Izadi
keywords: Breast cancer; Infrared; Mammography; Neoplasm; Thermography