schools don’t teach it. The practice also continues to be dogged by critics who consider it “pseudoscience” and point to exaggerated marketing claims sometimes made by thermography practitioners. Even the FDA issued a “Safety Communication” to the public in 2011 that stated, “ thermography is not a replacement for screening mammography and should not be used by itself to diagnose breast cancer.”
A Collaborative Approach Thermography advocates say they’ve never called for thermography to replace mammography. In fact, advocates have long supported a collaborative approach. The American College of Clinical Thermology (ACCT) describes thermography as “an adjunct to the appropriate use of mammography,” not a competitor. The ACCT website states that thermography “has the ability to identify patients at the highest level of risk and actually increase the effective usage of mammography and ultrasound.” Adding thermography to the breast
health toolkit is important, advocates say, because the procedure can detect heat and vascular abnormalities years
before being discovered by any other procedure, including mammography. “Thermography can detect
physiologic changes associated with a cancer while it is still at a cellular level—before it becomes visible on a mammogram,” says Dr. Thomas Hudson, a diagnostic radiologist and independent women’s imaging consultant based at the Women’s Center for Radiology in Orlando, Fla. Hudson is also the author of Journey to Hope, written to help women understand the intricacies of breast health and breast cancer.
Additional Benefits Hudson says thermography has preventive care benefits beyond early breast cancer detection. He notes on his Journey to Hope website that it can indicate an imbalance in estrogen levels associated with higher breast cancer risk and can detect lymphatic congestion, which can be a precursor to disease. “In short, thermography is a way
to monitor breast health, not just a way to detect breast disease,” he says. “Thermography offers a woman the chance to become aware of worrisome physiological changes before there is a
diagnosable cancer—which is when risk- reduction strategies such as diet, exercise and stress reduction are most effective.” Hudson acknowledges that the
conventional medical community has been slow to embrace thermography, but he believes that will change. “As medicine becomes more
integrative, many of these issues will disappear. Thermography will become more accepted as paradigms change and perspectives broaden,” he says. “Thermography doesn’t replace mammography. It adds a much-needed piece to the puzzle, providing risk information and possible early warning that mammography cannot.”
To learn more about thermography, visit the American College of Clinical Thermology at
www.thermologyonline. org, or visit
www.breastthermography. com. For more information about DITI Imaging in San Antonio and Austin, visit
www.ditiimaging.com. For more information about Dr. Thomas Hudson and his book, Journey to Hope, visit
www.yourjourneytohope.com. Joel Shuler is the publisher of Natural Awakenings San Antonio.
NaturalAwakeningsSA.com
May 2015
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