Dynamic response to heat – A novel physical characteristic of breast cancer

Abstract We report a novel observation about breast cancer. We imaged 6 fresh pathological specimens of breast cancer (1 mastectomy and 5 lumpectomies) with a sensitive infrared camera. We found that, following exposure to hot air for 1min, the cancers warmed up much less than the surrounding normal breast with a difference ranging from 12 to 20°C. We believe that this physical property of cancer should be explored and may give us better insight into the nature of cancer, its diagnosis (including intraoperative diagnosis) and targeted treatment.