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A Needle Thermocouple for Malignant Tumor Detection

Tumor temperature vs. armpit temperature
Tumor v. armpit
temperature

Regional hyperthermia of a malignant tumor has been recognized for a long time. However few clinical data are available to determine whether the actual temperature of the core area of a tumor beneath the skin correlates with the tumor malignancy. Our experimental results showed that the difference in temperature between the core area of the tumor and the armpit (deltaT) could discriminate whether the tumor was malignant or not.


ROC curve of the sensitivity of the diagnostic test (true positive rate) vs. the 1- specificity (false positive rate) for different values of the cutoff points
ROC curve

We measured 27 tumors that were 1 - 3 cm beneath the skin in the heads and necks of 27 patients with a needle thermocouple. We found that for the benign tumors deltaT was about 0.40 ºC, while for the malignant tumors deltaT was about 1.34 ºC (p < 0.001). This finding suggests that deltaT could be an important criterion in the early detection and diagnosis of malignant tumors.


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