Thermography is a medical technique used extensively in France, Sweden, and Japan, as a first-line screening procedures assessing breast health. The FDA has approved thermography as an adjunctive tool for screening and diagnosing breast cancer.

Angiogensis forms new blood vessels. Tumor angiogenesis is the process to form new blood vessels grow into the tumor, giving it nutrients and oxygen to aid its growth. Before 1960, cancer researchers believed the blood supply reached tumors simply because of existing blood vessels. However, later experiments showed that angiogenesis played a major role in the growth of new blood vessels, which are necessary for cancerous tumors to keep growing and spreading.

Angiogensis plays a major role in breast cancer, and results in increased blood vessel growth in both precancerous tissue and the area surrounding a developing breast cancer is almost always higher than in the normal breast. Precancerous and cancerous masses need a rich supply of nutrients to preserve their growth. As the increase for demand of nutrients grows the circulation grows as well. This results in increased regional surface temperatures of the breast.

The increase in regional surface temperatures is useful with thermography scans. Abnormal scans of the breast clearly show abnormal areas of heat. This provides the clinician with the ability to look into something may be wrong with the physiology of the breast.