Numerical Investigation of Tissue-Temperature Controlled ‎System in Thermal Ablation: A Finite Element Approach

Abstract

In thermal ablation, several techniques of treating infected cell in human tissue are being used by the physicians. Transferring heat to the infected cell is one of them. The purpose of this research is to investigate the tissue-temperature controlled system in thermal ablation and compare with two different point heating processes, namely constant and step heating. For this purpose, the finite element model of Penne’s bio-heat equation has been developed to measure the temperature within the two-dimensional tissue model embedded with a small tumor. The tissue temperature-controlled heating was designed to restrict the healthy tissue temperature below the damage threshold temperature. Using the temperature profile, tissue damage index was measured with the help of Arrhenius rate equation. The results show that the tissue temperature-controlled system reduces the temperature of healthy tissue nearby the infected cell to 40% compare to constant and step point heating. This system keeps the healthy tissue within the threshold value (43oC) up to 1000s when it is 100s for other two techniques. After 200s, healthy tissue nearby the infected cell start to damage for constant and step point heating. But temperature-controlled system always keep the healthy tissue safe. The results of this research conclude the temperature-controlled system a better heating technique to remove the infected cell. The information published in this paper will be helpful for the physicians and bio-medical engineers to treat the infected cell or to design medical equipment.

Keywords

• bio-heat transfer
• finite element method
• tumor ablation
• temperature –controlled heating
• step heating