Thermographic pattern’s in women’s breast due to uniformly perfused tumors and menstrual cycle

Abstract

The investigators in the past studied thermographic patterns due to malignant tumors in the breast without taking into account the benign changes taking place in the breast during her life time. The thermography being non-destructive in nature is preferable over other techniques for detection of breast cancer. But it suffers from the issues of specificity and sensitivity. These issues may be due to various benign changes in the breast in response to physiological processes taking place in womens body. In this paper a model is proposed to study thermographic patterns in womens breast due to uniformly perfused tumor in presence and absence of benign changes taking place due to menstrual cycle. The finite element technique is employed to simulate the model. The numerical results have been used to study the effect of follicular and luteal phases of menstrual cycle on thermographic patterns in womens breast with and without tumor. The results obtained from such models can be useful for improving the specificity and sensitivity of detection of tumors and other malignant and benign disorders in womens breast by thermography.