Computational Investigation of Magnetic Hyperthermia for Complex Shaped Tumor using Finite Volume Immersed Boundary Method

Abstract

Magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia therapy (MNPH) is an emerging cancer treatment modality owing to its advantage of minimal invasive as well as can target irregular deep-rooted and poorly accessible tumors. Hyperthermia utilizes heat to sensitize pathological (cancerous) tissues for chemo/radiation therapy or to directly kill the cancerous cell through thermal ablation. However, achieving precise control of the spatial thermal dose within the tumor region is challenging due to various factors. These include tissue physiology, the size and shape of tumors, the distribution of magnetic nano-particle (MNP) in the tissue and magnetic field parameters. Since the tumors can have any irregular shape, thus devising the treatment protocol for MNPH for complexly shaped tumor remains a challenging task. Application of computational methodology can assist to clinician to devise a suitable treatment protocol for hyperthermia therapy. Computational simulation of the bioheat models in the complex tissue is challenging and computationally intensive due to the unavoidable complexity associated with the body-fitted grid generation. The objective of the present study is to develop the Cartesian grid based finite volume immersed boundary method (FV-IBM) for the bioheat transfer equation. The developed FV-IBM framework is used to simulate and analyze intratumoral MNPH therapy in complex and real tumor models. Immersed boundary method (IBM) is employed to enforce the boundary effect on the non-body conformal Cartesian grid. The finite volume method (FVM) is used as a numerical technique to discretize the governing equations. The validation and verification of the FV-IB method have shown that the scheme is nearly second-order accurate. Furthermore, the numerical results in the spherical tumor model are in good agreement with previously reported results for steady and transient cases. Results for MNP-based hyperthermia investigation with two heat source (Gaussian and uniform) distribution patterns in the liver tumor are in good