By Jenny Suo
Health groups are warning women to stay away from a diagnostic tool called thermography, which is sometimes used to screen for breast cancer.
The health groups say there's insufficient evidence to show that it works.
Thermography records heat distribution to form an image and has been sold as a tool for early detection of breast cancer.
Josie Taylor thought her life had changed forever when she had her breasts checked at a thermography clinic.
She had three sleepless nights before she had a mammogram – surprisingly, it came back clear.
Ms Taylor was lucky - she feared she was developing cancer when she wasn't.
But its patients the other way around that have doctors concerned.
"The harm of thermography is reassuring women they're fine when they're not," says breast surgeon Belinda Scott.
"For me, it's not a happening thing. It just doesn't work."
The main appeal of thermograms is they're non-invasive. Patients just have a picture taken.
But key health groups including the Ministry of Health don't support their use, saying there's insufficient evidence that thermography is trustworthy.
A thermography specialist disagrees.
"I've been doing thermal imaging in this country for eight years," says Mike Godfrey. "I established the network, I've done almost 3000 thermograms. I've missed one."
Mr Godfrey says he's not promoting thermography as an alternative to mammography, instead they should be used alongside each other - something that Ms Taylor doesn't feel was made clear to her.
"I think there needs to be more information out there about this, I've found out since then it's not necessarily a breast screening device at all."
She is relying on mammography in future - a technique that gets the full support of those health groups concerned about thermography.
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