A study of thermal effect of epithelial tumor on temperature distribution in annular tissue layers of a human body

The use of computers in medicine and biology has increased the scope for applications of mathematical methods in biomedical problems. One of the notable example is of thermography for detection of cancer. In view of this an attempt has been made to develop a finite element model of temperature distribution in annular tissue layers of a human limb for a two dimensional steady state case. The model incorporates the effect of various parameters like blood mass flow rate, thermal conductivity and rate of metabolic heat generation. The outer surface is exposed to the atmosphere and accordingly appropriate boundary conditions have been framed. The properties are taken to be variable along the angular direction. A small epithelial tumor is assumed to be situated at the interface of epidermis and dermis. The triangular ring elements have been employed to discretize the region. A computer program has been developed and simulated to obtain numerical results. These numerical results have been used to study the thermal effect of the tumor on temperature variations in surrounding tissues