Assessment of Thermal Damage During Skin Tumor Treatment Using Thermal Wave Model: A Realistic Approach

Abstract

In this study, a three-layered skin tissue has been modeled to assess the heat transfer characteristics in laser skin tumor–tissue interaction. A finite-volume-based two-dimensional numerical bioheat transfer model has been put together to study the damage prediction of healthy tissues by considering both Fourier and non-Fourier laws. The combination of the bioheat transfer equation with Fourier law forms the parabolic equation (Pennes model) and with the non-Fourier equation forms the hyperbolic equation (thermal wave model). In this paper, the laser source is provided on the outer layer of the skin to dismantle the undesired tumor region exemplified as inhomogeneity (tumor) present in the intermediate layer. Heat input through the laser source is on until it reaches the tumor-killing criteria. The heat transport equation has been discretized by the finite volume method (FVM). The finite-volume-based numerical model is developed in such a way that the non-Fourier model predictions can be obtained through conventional Fourier-based solver. The central difference scheme is adopted for discretizing the spatial derivative terms. An implicit scheme is applied to treat the transient terms in the model. For few cases of the hyperbolic problems, certain limitation for a chosen implicit scheme has also been addressed in this paper. The results are validated with the existing literatures. The evaluated results are based on both the Fourier and the non-Fourier model, to investigate the temperature distribution and thermal damage by ensuring irreversible thermal damage in the whole tumor region placed in the dermis layer. Thermal damage of the healthy tissue is found to be more in the time scale of the thermal wave model.