Life's Delicate Balance
Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer
by Janette D. Sherman, M.D.

Excerpts from Chapter 4
Breast Cancer Diagnosis 
Mammographic and other methods

Breast cancer is all too common, and there are few reliable methods for detecting the disease in its early stage.  Experience shows that most cancers are found by the woman herself.  Feeling a mass or having a mammogram, are the currently recommended methods.   Either way, the abnormality has to be large enough to be felt or seen.  Another method of screening is available, and that is thermography, a heat-sensing technique, but it is not well-developed in the United States, nor widely available.

To date, in contrast to the specific blood test for prostate cancer (PSA or prostate specific antigen), there are no reliable blood or urine tests reflecting a change in the body's physiology that would signal a developing breast malignancy.  Hence, regular self-examination still remains the major screening tool.  Women, still having their menses experience an increased fullness in their breasts prior to menstruation so the best time to examine ones' breasts are at the end of ones' menstrual period.  These examinations should be done regularly, every month.  For women past menopause, it helps to mark the calendar to set a regular time for beast self-examination.  It is important for every women to become familiar with the topography of her own breasts, and to be able to detect any change  in the texture of her breast tissue.  Examination should include not only breast tissue, but ones' axillae (arm pits) as well.  For some women, the first sign of a breast lesion is an enlarged lymph node in the axilla.

A yearly thorough breast examination by a physician or nurse practitioner trained in the technique of breast examination is very important. Breast and gynecological examinations should be done yearly. The latter should include a Pap smear and pelvic examination. These two procedures are able to detect two major causes of sickness and death in women. It is reassuring to know that most insurance programs now cover the cost of mammographic and Pap tests, although this was not always so, and obviously counter to the precept of preventive medicine. 

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If ever there was a needed alternative to x-ray mammography, thermology appear to be it.  Data so far indicate that dynamic thermography has the potential to surpass traditional and static-point-in-time mammography in the study of and diagnosis of breast malignancy.  With the exception of on-going studies at a few centers, questions abound why this harmless, non-invasive and less-costly technique of diagnosis and study has essentially been abandoned in the United States.  Although used in Japan, Austria and Germany, Dr. Anbar thought three factors were blocking development of thermography in the United States:  1) Lack of funding for research from the National Institutes of Health; 2) opposition from established radiology; and 3) the reluctance of the insurance industry to pay for such examinations.  The insurance industry has an additional incentive not to accept thermography. The technique was utilized for awhile to document soft tissue injury following industrial or other injures, thus it tipped the balance of proof away from the insurance industry to the patient.

A safe, non-invasive, inexpensive and reliable method of breast surveillance is more than ever a necessity.  We must ask, if Congressional and industrial leaders in the United States can invest millions in the technology of heat-seeking missiles, how long will it be before they are willing to invest at least as much money, time, and expertise in heat-seeking techniques to diagnose and study breast cancer?  I think women deserve a straight answer.

In summary, each of these techniques, traditional mammography and thermography, are diagnostic only.  We must never loose sight of the fact that early detection  is just that, a way to find a cancer, it does absolutely nothing to prevent  a cancer from developing.