Adaptive thermal modeling: a concept for measurement of local blood perfusion in heated tissues

A new Adaptive Thermal Modeling (ATM) method for the measurement of local tissue blood perfusion rate is introduced. The method is based on a two-phase numerical technique. The first phase includes a fast, finite difference scheme for solution of the transient temperature field. The second phase involves iterative corrections of the perfusion until the modeled temperatures coincide with those measured by the temperature sensors. The results obtained from computer generated "data", as well as from laboratory experiments demonstrate the potential capability of the ATM method to continuously measure local perfusion rates in heated tissues. Rigorous analysis of the technique is planned for the near future so that it can be applied to in vivo measurements of local tissue blood perfusions.