Although not a part of Dr. Ross' chiropractic practice, he feels that this adjunctive screening for breast cancer is so important that he is now offering it at his office. For further information or to book an appointment, please go to bodyandbreastthermalimaging.com.
Young women at risk:
A very important area of consideration is the neglected category of women under the age of 40. We do not hear much about it, but there are over 20,000 cases of breast cancer in this age group each year in the USA. When cancer occurs in a younger woman, it is usually a much more aggressive form, and less likely to respond to treatment. There is currently no other routine screening tests for women under 40, andthermography is a perfect test for these women as there is no radiation from the exam.
How does Thermographic Imaging work?
Breast Thermography is a Radiation Free state-of-the art screening procedure
that captures heat images of the breast to aid in the early detection of breast cancer.
As a tumor grows it develops a bigger (and hotter) blood supply. An infrared camera picks this up as a heat signal and forms an image like the ones below on a computer.
It is then easy to see the differences that are present from side to side and see where tumor development may be taking place.
In the images above the heat surrounding the nipple is in excess and the function of the increased growth of blood vessels that are feeding the underlying tumor.
History:
Breast thermography was discovered in 1956 in Montréal, Canada and rapidly became popular throughout the world. It was FDA cleared as an adjunctive screening procedure for breast cancer in 1982. Recent advancements in technology have allowed us to perform even more accurate exams. A 2008 study published in the American Journal of surgery, performed at New York Presbyterian Hospital Cornell showed a 97% sensitivity in detecting cancer confirmed by biopsy.
Available research: the Index Medicus assists, a comprehensive index of medical scientific journal articles, references more than 800 peer-reviewed breast thermography studies, in which over 250,000 women participated. Many of these studies involve very large groups of patients (from 37,000 to over 100,000) and some followed patients for as long as 12 years. Among other conclusions, these studies found that when thermography has been added to a women woman’s regular breast health checkups, a 61% increase survival rate was realized and when used as part of a multimodal approach (clinical examination, mammography and thermography) 95% of early-stage cancers will be detected.
