Comparative study of heat transfer and thermal damage assessment models for hyperthermia treatment

Appropriate heating of the tumor can ablate tumor cells with minimal damage to healthy tissue and low side effects to the patient. Therefore, it is important to estimate power dissipation requirement and predict thermal damage in tumor before hyperthermia treatment. This work applied a mathematical model on heat transfer in two-layered spherical tissue to predict the temperature profile within hyperthermia domain. The present bioheat transfer problem was analyzed based on the Pennes equation, the thermal wave and dual-phase lag modes in order to explore the effect of analysis mode on the power dissipation requirement. The Arrenius equation, the modified thermal damage model with regeneration term, and the equivalent thermal dose equation were used to evaluate the thermal damage and discuss their effects on thermal damage prediction. The computation results show that the model of bioheat transfer and the non-Fourier effect significantly affects the power dissipation requirement. The damage parameter value predicted by the modified thermal damage model with regeneration term seems to have a limit value of Ω = 1. The results imply that the regeneration of biological tissue can prevent the tissue from thermal damage, the equivalent thermal dose equation is more related to heating time, and the Arrenius equation is more related to heating temperature.