I'm starting a new type of inspection

[Jeffrey R. Wicklander]

Originally Posted by John Snell

Thanks for your post on this serious issue. I know there is often lots of joking around on this messageboard and I don't meet to be a jerk, but this IS a serious issue. If testicular cancer killed as many men as breast cancer kills women, I suspect we'd have found a cure by now!

Infrared has long been used to screen women for anomalous thermal patterns that can be early indicators of future problems. The power of using IR is that it is non-invasive. For young women and for women who have already have breast cancer (and radiation treatment), this is huge.

One of the problems in this country is that insurance companies won't pay for it because it is not recognized as a medical procedure. We came close to getting it recognized back in the 80s but it fell apart—in part because some thermographers were doing the work who were not qualified. There is a great deal of good information on the internet but, beware, as it is woven in with much that is misleading or just plain wrong.

IF you truly want to get into this area of application, there are training courses for doing so. Any of us can become qualified to take the images but only a medical professional can interpret them.

At our last Thermal Solutions conference, Prof. Dr. Francis Ring, a world renown medical thermologist, delivered the keynote address. You can use his home page to link to many other related topics. http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/staff/efring/FRANCIS.HTM

One of my co-workers is just now in her second round with breast cancer so my tolerance for jokes is pretty low. Please do what you can to move this important item forward so that all women, like my wife, daughter, sisters and many friends, can have access to this remarkable technology.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Thermally yours,

John Snell
ASNT NDT Thermal/Infrared Level III #48166
Snell Infrared
800-636-9820
802-229-9820
http://www.thesnellgroup.com
http://www.IRTalk.com
http://www.learnnewsolutions.com/

Is Thermography approved by the ACS and ACR? If isn't, why should it be recommended?

Jeff

[John Snell]

Originally Posted by jwicklander

Is Thermography approved by the ACS and ACR? If isn't, why should it be recommended?

Jeff

It is not approved. It should be recommended because it provides remarkable information non-invasively.

[William J. Decker]

They sure have come a long way since I was doing these at U or C, back in 1979. The old camera had to be cooled with liquid nitrogen and cost upwards of a Million dollars.

More sensitive, too.