Who reads the Thermogram reports and what do they look for?
Thermologists, the medical doctors trained to “read” thermal scans, will interpret the images just as radiologists read the x-ray pictures radiographers have taken. They are highly trained to look for patterns particular to various breast conditions. These may present as asymmetry, where the colour pattern differs in one breast from the other, though repeat monitoring could also evaluate this as normal for that particular woman. Comparing right side to left, and different areas of the breast, we are looking for temperature differentials and particularly patterns that may be suspicious. But even if they do change over time, these differences could also relate to fibrocystic changes, and thermal ‘hotspots’ could simply reflect nerve irritation.
