Numerical model of heat exchange in perfused tissues.

A vascular model of the bioheat transfer for perfused tissues is described, along with its numerical implementation. The method consists in creating a vascular tree model within the tissue region of interest and formulating a numerical scheme that couples the temperatures of the tissue and of the arterial and venous blood flowing through it. The necessary equations are derived and cast in finite difference form. The numerical implementation of the method is then used to obtain results for a specific example. The presented method allows modelling of the effect of individual blood vessels present in the tissue domain on the heat transfer. It is significantly more expensive computationally than continuum models. At the same time, it is numerically cheaper than most vascular models known in the literature. The present implementation can be extended to cover 3D geometry and thermoregulation effects (vasoconstriction and vasodilation) at moderate cost.