Thermography and Assessment of Breast Cancer

To the Editor.—  Dorthea R. Peck, MD (241:2784, 1979), suggests appropriately that biologic assessment of breast cancer is probably important.Thermography has performed this function well since first reported by Lawson¹ of Montreal, in 1957. In 1969, Lloyd² reported the biologic survival of patients as a direct function of temperature of the cancerous breast in 167 cases. Patients who had temperatures higher than 2.5 °C had no survival past 2 1/2 years.More recently, Fournier³ of Heidelberg studied breast tumor doubling time as measured and computed on mammography, correlated with thermographic evaluation of the affected breast. Doubling times of 400 to 500 days had no thermal disturbance compared with doubling times of 40 to 50 days, which had greater than 3 °C in more than 88% of cases.Thermal biology of tumors is now possible with thermography. With this information a better prognosis and a differentiated treatment