[Diagnosis of breast cancer in the clinical stage T1]

52 women with stage T1 breast cancer were investigated by thermography, mammography and ultrasound and the results compared with the patients age, histological tumour type and the degree of malignancy. The best results were achieved by mammography (sensitivity: 85%). In tumours with a large amount of connective tissue (scirrhous or invasive lobular cancer) sensitivity rose to 94%, whilst in tumours with little connective tissue (solid, medullary, adenomatous and papillary) sensitivity decreased to 69%. The respective values for thermographic sensitivity were 44% and 77% and for ultrasound sensitivity in palpable tumours 85% and 65%, respectively. On mammography 3 carcinomas were not recognized, all three in younger patients; on thermography also three false negative results were obtained, but all in older patients. The sensitivity of thermography increases in parallel with increasing degree of tumour malignancy. Whilst ultrasound is a valuable aid for differential diagnosis in palpable tumours only, screening results can evidently be improved by a combination of thermography and mammography.