A three-dimensional description of heating patterns in vascularised tissues during hyperthermic treatment

A three-dimensional finite difference computer model has been developed to calculate temperature distributions in vascularised tissues in hyperthermia. Besides offering the possibility of calculating temperature distributions according to the conventional ' bioheat transfer' method, this model allows the introduction of several discrete blood vessels and can describe their influence on the temperature distribution. The model can be used to evaluate all types of heating techniques. First calculations on discrete large vessels show inhomogeneities caused by these vessels in the temperature distribution in tissue in hyperthermia. The theory and model presented can form the basis of a new bioheat transfer theory, with a vessel-temperature related bioheat transfer heat-sink term able to describe the small-scale temperature variation problems in local hyperthermia.