Bloodflow modeling for heat transfer applications in cancer treatments: Clinical measurements and mathematical models.

摘要

This thesis develops two methods of describing bloodflow for analyzing heat transfer in tissue. The first method characterizes cerebral bloodflow (CBF) in the different anatomical tissue regions in and around malignant gliomas based on measurements made from xenon enhanced computed tomography (XeCT) and on various patient and tumor characteristics. The identified regions were the tumor core, active tumor, edema, normal tissue adjacent to the tumor, and remote normal tissue in the opposite side of the brain.;The second method involves generating an artificial three dimensional representation of discrete countercurrent vascular networks. Vessels are modeled as rigid straight line segments with zero wall thickness and fully developed steady state laminar flow. Both methods provide promising tools for increasing the understanding of heat transfer in tissue.