Thermography to Detect Breast Cancer

To the Editor: The report by Moskowitz et al. (N Engl J Med 295:249-252, 1976) concerning the efficacy of thermography in identifying early breast carcinomas raises several questions about the experimental design used and the conclusions reached. We take exception to the authors' statement that “this study was specifically designed to see if thermography could correctly identify patients with smaller cancers that are currently detectable by other means.” If one were to design an experiment to measure the ability of thermographic readers rather than the sensitivity of the diagnostic thermographic test, just such an experimental design would be appropriate. . .