Mathematical and numerical analysis of thermal distribution in cancerous tissues under the local heat therapy

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the thermal behavior of living tissues in the presence of spatial external heat source. An effort has been made to formulate the mathematical model to study the temperature distribution in in vivo tissues of the human body. The mathematical formulation is governed by bio-heat equation together with appropriate initial, boundary and interface conditions. The solution of the model was carried out using variational finite element method and computational simulations. The model describes the exchange of heat between the internal biological tissues and other surrounding media. The effect of external heat source under different conditions of atmospheric temperature and as a local hyperthermic method provides an important information to the temperature regulation in biological tissues under normal and malignant conditions. Thermal fluctuations at the targeted regions were obtained with respect to various time-dependent heating sources and scattering coefficients. The results obtained may be helpful for clinical purposes especially in the treatment of cancerous tumors through radiotherapy and other local hyperthermic approaches.