Heat Transfer Applications in Biological Systems

Over the past 100 years, the understanding of thermal and mechanical properties of human tissues and physics that governs biological processes has been greatly advanced by the utilization of fundamental engineering principles in the analysis of many heat and mass transport applications in biology and medicine. During the past two decades, there has been an increasingly intense interest in bioheat transfer phenomena, with particular emphasis on therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Relying on advanced computational techniques, the development of complex mathematical models has greatly enhanced our ability to analyze various types of bioheat transfer process. The collaborations among physiologists, clinicians, and engineers in the bioheat transfer field have resulted in improvements in prevention, treatment, preservation, and protection techniques for biological systems, including use of heat or cold treatments to destroy tumors and to improve patients’ outcome after brain injury, and the protection of humans from extreme environmental conditions. In this chapter we start with fundamental aspects of local blood tissue thermal interaction. Discussions on how the blood effect is modeled in tissue then follow. Different approaches for theoretically modeling the blood flow in the tissue are shown. In particular the assumptions and validity of several widely used continuum bioheat transfer equations are evaluated. Different techniques to measure temperature, thermophysical properties, and blood flow in biological systems are then described. The final part of the chapter focuses on one of the medical applications of heat transfer, hyperthermia treatment for tumors.