Surface Temperature Distribution of a Breast With and Without Tumour

Abstract

Breast cancer is a common and dreadful disease in women. Regular screening helps in its early detection. At present the most common methods of screening are by self examination and mammography. The surface temperature distribution of the breast can also provide some information on the presence of tumour. This distribution has a relation to the size and location of tumour and can be seen using thermography, where the infrared radiation emitted from the surface of the breast is recorded and a thermal pattern obtained. Thermography is a non-invasive and an inexpensive tool which could be used for early detection. In order to simulate the surface temperature distribution, a two-dimensional model of female breast with and without a carcinoma is considered. The breast is modelled with varying layer thickness close to the actual shape and numerically solved using finite element analysis. Temperature profiles are obtained for a normal breast and for a malignant one by varying the tumour size, location and the blood flow rates. The results show that the surface temperature for a malignant breast is higher than that of a normal one. In addition the size and location of the tumour do have an effect on the surface temperature distribution. It can also be seen that tumour of different sizes placed at the same location would yield the same maximum temperature depending on the blood perfusion rate.

Morphological measurement of localized temperature increase amplitudes in breast infrared thermograms and its clinical application

“…The 2 cases have very high LTI amplitudes (>2.5 8C). It may be related with the high basal metabolic rate of young woman and the high metabolic activity and blood perfusion of early cancer [4]. It indicates that early detection of breast cancer may be achieved by LTI amplitude.…”

“…The 3 cases are all advanced cancer, where 2 cases are advanced ductal carcinoma and 1 case is advanced medullary carcinoma. When the cancer is in the advanced stage, the metabolic activity of tumor will descend [4] and the LTI will not be prominent. Furthermore, 2 cases are very old (!60) and their basal metabolic rates are low.…”

“…It uses an infrared camera or scanner to detect the natural thermal radiation at wavelengths between 0.8 mm and 1.0 mm emitted from the human body and obtains an image recording the surface skin temperature distribution of that body which is also called infrared thermogram [2]. When a malignant tumor occurs in a breast, it will cause prominent localized increase of breast surface skin temperature for its high metabolic activity and blood perfusion [2][3][4][5][6]. The LTI shows as spot or vascular pattern in a breast infrared thermogram which is also called heat pattern.…”

Real Time Intelligent Thermal Analysis Approach for Early Diagnosis of Breast Cancer

“…The more larger the tumor size is, the steeper the temperature variation is [8]. How the temperature variates in the heat pattern is also important.…”

Early breast cancer detection method based on a simulation study of single-channel passive microwave radiometry imaging

“…Initially, the human female breast was simulated as an hemisphere of radius R and with three basic homogeneous layers, the thoracic muscle, the connective tissue and the skin layer [7]. Next, a single channel microwave radiometer was considered, with an antenna tuned at frequencies with which accounted for electrical field measurements at different depths (11.60, 0.80, 0.62, 0.48, 0.38 cm) in the human body.…”