EAGER: A CFD based thermal imaging technique for early breast cancer detection- Development and clinical assessment

利用现代热成像技术提高常规乳房x光检查有效筛查乳腺癌的能力早期和准确检测乳腺癌对于有效治疗和避免癌症扩散到身体其他部位至关重要。目前的指南建议对所有40-50岁以上的妇女进行常规乳房x光检查；然而，筛查乳房x光检查的敏感性和特异性仍然不够理想。热成像在过去已经被探索作为乳房x光检查的替代或辅助手段；历史上，热成像对病人来说既麻烦又不舒服。现代技术应该允许热成像提供有用的信息，而不需要冷却或其他操作，显著影响患者的舒适度。在“致密乳房”的情况下，增加热成像可能特别有益，在大约30%的女性中看到，当筛查乳房x光检查不理想时。这项工作的初始阶段是当前提案的基础，将使用从乳房x光检查和磁共振图像中获得的真实临床数据来开发热成像技术的模型。预期的后续工作将是将收集到的信息应用于开发有效的热成像技术，作为常规筛查乳房x光检查的辅助和增强。成功的应用有可能显著提高乳腺癌筛查的准确性，并可能对预防医学产生广泛影响，包括在社区一级降低乳腺癌的死亡率和发病率。发展稳态热成像技术作为一种诊断工具来检测恶性乳腺肿瘤，有可能大大提高乳腺癌的早期发现。目前用于检测乳腺癌的热成像系统通过使用冷板冷却乳房或吹冷空气来增强乳房中肿瘤的热特征，从而产生人工热梯度。这个过程对病人来说很不舒服，而且非常耗时。红外热成像和模拟工具的进步已经能够检测温度场的微小变化和乳房的精确建模。这些改进使得稳态热成像技术能够用于乳腺癌的早期检测。为了确定该技术的可行性，将由医学和工程领域的领先专家进行合作研究计划，以提供一个对患者友好的乳腺癌检测系统（工程团队将由热分析和数值模拟领域的专家组成，医疗团队由来自罗切斯特一家知名医院的领先肿瘤学家和放射科医生组成）。将利用ANSYS-Fluent开发一种能够准确模拟乳房传热的CFD模拟。更好地理解用于预测乳腺组织热特性的各种模型将得到发展。模拟结果将与临床数据进行比较，以确定乳房组织的热特性及其基于乳房组成的变化。各种组织层的厚度对乳腺热成像确定肿瘤存在能力的影响将被检查。研究了肿瘤大小和位置对表面温度场的影响。确定稳态热成像检测肿瘤的灵敏度、极限和准确性。

Use of modern thermal imaging techniques to enhance the ability of conventional mammograms to screen effectively for breast cancerEarly and accurate detection of breast cancer is critical in effectively treating it and avoid spreading of cancer to other regions of the body. Current guidelines recommend routine screening mammography for all women over 40-50 years of age; however, the sensitivity and specificity of screening mammograms remains less than optimal. Thermal imaging has been explored in the past as an alternative or adjunct to mammography; historically thermal imaging has been cumbersome and uncomfortable for the patient. Modern technology should allow thermal imaging to provide useful information without requiring cooling or other manipulations that significantly impact patient comfort. The addition of thermography may be particularly beneficial in the setting of "dense breasts", seen in about 30% of women, when screening mammography alone is suboptimal. The initial phase of this work which is the basis of the current proposal will use real world clinical data obtained from mammography and magnetic resonance images to develop models for thermal imaging techniques. The expected follow up will be to apply the information gleaned to the development of an effective thermal imaging technique to serve as an adjunct and enhancement to routine screening mammography. Successful application has the potential to significantly increase the accuracy of screening for breast cancer and could have broad implications for preventive medicine including the reduction of mortality and morbidity of breast cancer at a community level.Developing a steady state thermography technique as a diagnostic tool to detect malignant breast tumors has the potential to greatly improve the early detection of breast cancer. Current thermographic systems available to detect breast cancer create an artificial thermal gradient by cooling the breast using cold plates or by blowing cold air to enhance the thermal signature of the tumor in the breast. This procedure is uncomfortable for the patient and very time consuming. Advances in infrared thermography and simulation tools have enabled detection of minute changes in temperature fields and accurate modeling of the breast. These improvements have enabled the use of steady state thermography for the early detection of breast cancer. To determine the viability of the technique, a cooperative research plan will be undertaken by leading experts from the medical and engineering domains to provide a patient-friendly breast cancer detection system (engineering team will consist of experts in the thermal analysis and numerical modeling areas, and the medical team consists of leading oncologists and radiologists from a reputed medical hospital in Rochester). A CFD simulation that can accurately simulate heat transfer in the breast will be developed using ANSYS-Fluent. A better understanding of the various models used to predict the thermal properties of the breast tissue will be developed. The results from the simulations will be compared with the clinical data to determine the thermal properties of the breast tissue and its variation based on the composition of the breast. The effect of the thickness of the various tissue layers on the ability of breast thermography to determine the presence of tumors will be examined. The effect of tumor size and position on the surface temperature field will be studied. The sensitivity limits and accuracy of tumor detection using steady state thermography will be determined.