FTn Finite Volume Analysis of Ultrafast Laser Radiation Transport through Human Skin Cancer

Abstract

In this work, we develop a numerical tool for the early detection of skin cancer using a 3D numerical transient radiative heat transfer study of ultrafast-laser transport through normal and malignant human skins. The curved-line advection method (CLAM) spatial scheme and the FTn angular scheme of the finite volume method (FVM) are investigated to analyze the above-cited physical phenomena. Both Fresnel specular and diffuse boundary conditions are analyzed. Human skin is considered based on optical properties available from other sources. The temporal radiative signals of skin with malignancies were compared to those of normal skin. Malignancies in the basal layer and epidermis were simulated. Further, the effects of laser light wavelength and the volume of the cancerous region and its scattering coefficient on these signals were studied. The results show that (1) the effect of the Fresnel boundary in the modeling was pronounced; (2) the peak magnitude for human skin with the cutaneous melanoma (CM) had the maximum value in comparison with those obtained for the two other malignancies; and (3) when cancer fully affected the living epidermis with any of these malignancies, the reflectance was more than its predicted value when affected by the basal only.