Simulations of electrically stimulated thermal imaging using a 3D breast model

Tissues have different electrical conductivity and metabolic energy consuming values depending on their state of health and species. Since metabolic heat generation values show differences from tissue to tissue, thermal imaging goes on very important and vital point in breast cancer diagnosis. Temperature differences of healthy and cancerous tissue is changed by the help of low frequency current application in medical safety limits and depth dependent imaging performance can be increased. In this study, a three-dimensional realistic model of breast and cancerous tissue is developed and feasibility work for proposed method is implemented. Temperature distributions are obtained by solving Pennes Bio Heat Equation (with finite element method). Temporal and spatial temperature distribution images are obtained at desired depths for two cases; with and without current stimulation. Imaging performance can be increased with current stimulation and the temperature difference at breast surface due to 40 mm3 tumor at 1.5 cm depth can be sensed with the state-of-the-art thermal infrared imagers.