Thermal Patterns in Peripheral Regions of Breast during Different Stages of Development

Background: Mathematical modelling of bio thermal processes is widely used to enhance the quantitative understanding of thermoregulation system of human body organs. This quantitative knowledge of thermal information of various human body organs can be used for developing clinical applications. In the past the investigators have studied thermal distribution in hemispherical shaped human breast in presence of spherical shaped tumor. The shape and size of the breast as well as tumor may also affect thermal distribution which can have serious implications in thermography. In the present paper a model of thermal disturbances in peripheral regions of ellipsoidal shaped breast for two dimensional steady state case. The modelling study will provide biomedical scientist vital insights of thermal changes occurring due to shape and size of breast which can influence the development of protocols of thermography for diagnosis and treatment of tumors in women’s breast. Method: We have incorporated the significant parameters like blood flow, metabolic activity and thermal conductivity in the thermal model for normal and malignant tissues. The controlled metabolic activity has been incorporated for normal tissues. The peripheral regions of breast are divided into three major layers mainly epidermis, dermis and sub dermal tissues. The outer surface of the breast is assumed to be exposed to the environment and the heat loss takes place by conduction, convection, radiation and evaporation. The finite element approach is employed to obtain the solution. Results: By selecting appropriate model parameters we have shown the spatial thermal variation in different stages of breast according to their shapes which could be replicated by the proposed model. Conclusions: The proposed model was successfully employed to study the impact of different sizes and shapes in peripheral regions of elliptical shaped woman’s breast. The proposed model is more realistic in terms of shape and size of woman’s breast in comparison to earlier models reported in the literature. The changes in slope of the thermal curves at the junctions of various peripheral layers are due to the non homogenous nature of the region.