Effect of Arterial flow on Heat Transfer during Hyperthermia Applications

Abstract

Hyperthermia is a heat treatment that basically refers to the application of heat to treat a disease by using heat. Heat treatment as a therapy method is not new, but it is becoming more popular as a tumour treatment. Magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) which has been used to treat cancer for decades, involves injecting magnetic nanoparticles into tumours and then heating them in an alternating magnetic field. The concept is to insert magnetic particles into a malignant tumour and use alternating magnetic fields to raise the interstitial temperature, so eliminating the tumour. In present work the effect of magnetic hyperthermia in the arteries on different positions is analysed by creating a three dimensional model and using computational methods with the help of COMSOL Multiphysics software. In this computational study the effect of variation in distance from artery is studied by giving a specific blood flow rate. In this work different artery positions x=3mm, 6mm, 9mm, 12mm are considered on the basis of configurations namely near tumour center, mid tumour, tumour boundary and outside tumour configuration respectively. In other part of this study maximum temperature in the tumour domain have been analysed on different locations or artery configurations. Results find that position of artery plays a key role in heat dissipation through artery. The final conclusion of this work suggested that therapeutic temperature decreases when arteries are closer to the tumour due to convective heat transfer effect and same temperature starts to increase when arteries are away from the tumour.