German Association for thermography and regulation medicine e.V. (for short: DGTR)
Thermography means temperature measurement. There are two ways:
- contact thermography according to Rost: by this method the temperature is measured by putting a sensor on the corresponding skin points
- infrared-thermography: the body’s infrared-radiation is measured by a special infrared camera
Regulation thermograhy means measurement of the temperature before and after cooling down. So it is a diagnostic method to complete classical examinations such as x-rays, sonography, magnetic resonance imaging, just to mention some of them.
By cooling down of the body a temperature change is induced. It shows the body’s regulation to a defined stimulus. The medicine exactly makes use of this reactivity to establish a diagnosis resp. therapy supervision.
The reaction of the human body to an exactly defined stimulus (here: cooling down of the body) can be in different ways:
- normal
- limited
- exaggerated
- paradoxic (contrary to expectation)
Thermography of the breast, especially the infrared-thermography, finds out changes, which are to be found in their early stage for example in the case of diseases such as mastopathy, cysts, inflammation or breast cancer. That’s why it’s used as an additional method to mammography, sonography and MRT. It’s application is for control as well as for supervision too (neither x-rays exposure nor squeezing of the breast).