A review of the dedicated studies to breast cancer diagnosis by thermal imaging in the fields of medical and artificial intelligence sciences

Introduction: Body temperature is a natural criteria for the diagnosis of diseases. Thermal imaging (thermography) applies infrared method which is fast, non-invasive, non-contact and flexibile to monitor the temperature of the human body. Materials and methods: This paper investigates highly diversified studies implemented before and after the year 2000 and it emphasizes mostly on the newly published articles including: performance and evaluation of thermal imaging, the various aspects of imaging as well as the available technology in this field and its disadvantages in the diagnosis of breast cancer. Result: Thermal imaging has been adopted by researchers in the fields of medicine and biomedical engineering for the diagnosis of breast cancer. These days, thermal imaging method has not been established as an applicative method for screening or diagnosing purposes in academic centers. But there are different centers that adopt this method for the diagnosis and examining purposes. Conclusions: Thermal imaging is an effective method which is highly facilitative for breast cancer screening (due to the low cost and without harms), also its impact will increase by combining other methods such as a mammogram and sonography. However, it has not been widely recognised as an accepted method for determining the types of tumours (benign and malignant) and diseases of breast tissue.

Keywords: Breast cancer, Thermal imaging, Artificial intelligence.