Effects of temperature distribution in the tissue around the tumor on the quality of hyperthermia

Abstract

Cancer is a disease that has no definite treatment yet, and its mortality rate is high. In recent years a new method called hyperthermia has been wide-spread in clinical investigations. In this method magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been injected into the cancerous tumor and warmed up to kill cancerous cells. It has been a promising method for cancer treatment but there is a lack of knowledge about temperature distribution after injection yet. In this article, the maximum temperature caused by hyperthermia with MNPs has been investigated by using a numerical method and information about MNPs distribution from recent experimental investigations done by authors. Changing the temperature’s boundary condition has also been studied to find how they can affect temperature distribution in tumor and maximum temperature. Finally, the ablation of cancerous tumors and surrounding healthy tissue has been calculated and achieving the best initial and boundary conditions for using this method to treat cancer has been discussed. Results show that the effect of hyperthermia on treatment can be increased and the time required for treatment can be reduced with the rise in body temperature before hyperthermia. Results show that the effect of hyperthermia on treatment can be increased and the time required for treatment can be reduced with the rise in body temperature before hyperthermia. Results also show by considering the heat flux in the boundary, the distribution of temperature and thus the distribution of tissue necrosis changes and the necrotized tissue reduces in some cases that the tumor is near to the body surface.