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What is thermography?

It uses an infra-red camera to identify changes in temperature in the breast. This can indicate the presence of extra blood vessels associated with some breast cancers.

Why isn’t offered instead of a mammogram?

Unfortunately, there are other non-cancerous conditions which also cause an increase in temperature. There are also breast cancers which will not cause changes in temperature so can be missed. Thermography therefore gives too many false positive and negative readings to make it effective in a and is therefore not used in programmes of screening in the UK or any other country.

What about paying privately?

Women who seek out thermography as an alternative to mammograms should remember the results are not as accurate and may give a false impression of whether or not they have cancer.