April 2005, Vol. 15, Iss. 2
Table of Contents
Altered Cervical Lordosis and DJD • Chiropractor Invents Car Seat Headpiece • DACBRs Cause Professional Embarrassment at RAC • Eight Major Aberrant Forms of the Lumbo-Pelvic Spine • European Spine Journal to Publish 6th CBP® Clinical Control Trial • Evidence Based or Not • Glutamate/Aspartame - Pain and Your Brain • Greg Buchanan Donates $30,000 to CBP® Nonprofit • Inappropriate Characterization of CBP® Technique • Missed Appointments and Patient Education • Money, Taxes, Life and Practice • Palmer College Takes Alumni Group to Court • PosturePrint™ Research with ICA • Presenting Defendable Care Options to Patients • Published Papers Near 81 • Resign or be Terminated • Thermography: Renewed Interest • Using Silence to Communicate • Whiplash Injuries: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, Medical Management and Prognosis
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Thermography: Renewed Interest
By Charles R Solano, D.C., D.A.B.C.T
• Graduate, New York Chiropractic College 1966
• Diplomat, American Board of Clini-
cal Thermography
• Post Graduate Faculty, New York
Chiropractic College
• President, International Thermo-
graphic Society
• In practice for 39 years, 24 years
in Yonkers, New York and 15 years in
an integrative care center with my wife
of 21 years, Dr. Peggy Grabinski-
Solano, Palmer ‘82.
The International Thermographic Society recently held our annual conference in San Francisco October 22-24, 2004. The “new” interest is on breast disease and the angiogenic reaction that infrared computerized thermography can detect years before mammography. The public has become aware of it and for the past two to five years board members from around the country have been getting calls and referrals from physicians and the public to perform this exam.
To bring you up to speed, in 1982 the FDA approved breast thermography as an adjunctive diagnostic breast cancer screening procedure. Over 800 peer reviewed studies appear on breast thermography in the Index Medicus literature. In this data bank, well over 300,000 women have been included as study participants. Some of these studies have followed patients up to twelve years. Strict standardized interpretation protocol has been established for over fifteen years.
Breast thermography, computerized infrared has an average sensitivity and specificity of ninety percent. Abnormal thermography is ten times more significant as a future risk indicator of breast cancer than a first order family history. A persistent abnormal thermogram carries a twenty-two percent times higher risk of future breast cancer, and an abnormal thermogram is the single most important marker of high risk for developing breast. When used as part of a multimodal approach (clinical examination, mammography and thermography) ninety-five percent of early stage cancers can be detected.
In the Atlas of Mammography, by Parvis Gamagami M.D., chapter VII devoted to electronic infrared thermography, he states this is a highly sensitive test in detecting breast vasculature and thermic variations. He has utilized this since 1983 and these are some of his conclusions:
1) Color electronic thermography is the only device that can provide reproducible and correct information about the dynamics of breast cancer vascularity and its thermic variations.
2) Angiogenic alteration and thermic variation can be followed from the pre neoplastic to the neoplastic stage.
3) Preneoplastic angiogenic alterations can be seen in asymptomatic patients years before clinical or mammographic manifestations of breast cancer appear.
4) Thermography can be very useful in evaluating the efficacy of chemotherapy before and after treatment of inflammatory carcinoma.
5) Electronic thermography is not appropriate for screening without mammography.
6) The precise indications in the clinical setting are as follows:
• Palpable mass
• Palpable localized breast thickening with negative mammographic findings
• Bilateral or unilateral lumpy breast, fibrocystic breast with numerous breast biopsies in an asymptomatic patient with one breast denser than the other on mammography, or ill defined density in one breast without the characteristics of malignancy.
• Patients with lobular carcinoma in situ in one breast.
• Young patients with a strong family history of breast cancer.
• Electronic thermography is the only test by which in correlation with mammography, the area of the breast to be biopsied can be pin pointed.
The ITS has been involved with the fight against breast disease for twenty years. Our interest in thermography for neuromuscular, vascular, chronic regional pain syndrome and breast disease these past twenty plus years has kept us astride of clinical thermography. New York Chiropractic College, (Ernest G. Napolitano Postgraduate Center, Levittown), in conjunction with the ITS is having its first of a five module program for certification May 21st and 22nd. This first module covering the history of medical thermography, neuromuscular, complex regional pain syndrome and breast disease diagnosis is twelve of the continuing education credits of the sixty hours needed for certification by the American Board of Clinical Thermography. Instructing will be William Dudley, D.C. from Lowell, Michigan who has been teaching thermography for thirty years, James Christiansen, PhD Chairman of Biochemistry and Physiology at National University of Health Sciences. Dr. Christiansen has been researching and testing thermography for twenty years, and myself Charles R. Solano, D.C. President of the International Thermographic Society.
