A Computational Model of the Electromagnetic Heating of Biological Tissue with Application to Hyperthermic Cancer Therapy

Abstract

To investigate the potentialities of hyperthermia as a cancer therapy, computer simulations have been performed. This simulation consists of two tuccessive steps. First, the heat generated in a distribution of biological tissue when irradiated by a source of electromagnetic radiation is computed. The mathematical tool for determining the disbution of generated heat is the domain-integral-equation technique. This technique enables us to determine in a body with arbitrary distribution of permittivity and conductivity the electromagnetic field due to prescribed sources. The integral equation is solved numerically by an iterative minimization of the integrated square error. From the computed distribution of generated heat, the temperature distribution follows by solving numerically the pertaining heat transfer problem. The relevant differential equation together with initial and boundary conditions is solved numerically using a finite-element technique in space and a finite-difference technique in time. Numerical results pertaining to the temperature distribution in a model of the human pelvis are presented.