Theoretical study on the inverse modeling of deep body temperature measurement

We evaluated the theoretical aspects of monitoring the deep body temperature distribution with the inverse modeling method. A two-dimensional model was built based on anatomical structure to simulate the human abdomen. By integrating biophysical and physiological information, the deep body temperature distribution was estimated from cutaneous surface temperature measurements using an inverse quasilinear method. Simulations were conducted with and without the heat effect of blood perfusion in the muscle and skin layers. The results of the simulations showed consistently that the noise characteristics and arrangement of the temperature sensors were the major factors affecting the accuracy of the inverse solution. With temperature sensors of 0.05 °C systematic error and an optimized 16-sensor arrangement, the inverse method could estimate the deep body temperature distribution with an average absolute error of less than 0.20 °C. The results of this theoretical study suggest that it is possible to reconstruct the deep body temperature distribution with the inverse method and that this approach merits further investigation.