Thermography was originally developed for military purposes in the 1950’s, from the late 1950’s to early 1970’s thermography was used to detect breast cancer. Improved accuracy of infrared camera technology and better computer software have led to a renewed interest in thermography as a potential diagnostic tool breast cancer detection and as a screening method. Thermography measures the heat radiated from the breast and, unlike mammography, has no radiation exposure and is non-contact
Objective: The technology is based on the assumption that the skin overlying a cancer is at a higher temperature than that over a benign lesion or normal tissue. Especially for breast cancer detection, it is assumed that an asymmetric temperature distribution of the breast indicates vascular changes or malignant changes in this region.
Conclusion: There is limited, moderate-to-good quality evidence that thermography is not an effective screening method for breast cancer. Thermography as a diagnostic method for breast cancer detection in symptomatic women has both a high rate of false positive and false negative results. Based on the current data situation, thermography can neither be recommended as a screening method nor as a diagnostic method.