Breast Thermal Tomography and High Frequency Ultrasound Imaging in Predicting Breast Cancer: a Preliminary Study

Objective To determine the clinical value of breast thermal tomography and high frequency ultrasound imaging in diagnosing breast cancer. Methods Breast thermal tomography and high frequency ultrasound imaging were performed in 298 patients with breast lumps. The results were compared with pathological diagnosis. Results The ultrasound imaging had a sensitivity, specificity and the area under the curve (AUC) of 99.02%, 62.78% and 0.814, respectively, compared with 83.33%, 83.16% and 0.830 of thermal tomography, for diagnosing breast cancer. The two imaging results showed statistical significance in the test of non-inferiority (P＜0.001). A combination of the two imaging results produced a sensitivity, specificity and AUC of 83.33%, 89.79% and 0.866, respectively. Conclusion Thermal tomography is not inferior to ultrasonography in detecting breast cancer. The two combined can improve specificity and accuracy of the diagnosis of breast cancer.