Solid malignant tumors are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Many times complete removal is not possible and alternative methods such as focused hyperthermia are used. Precise control of the hyperthermia process is imperative for the successful application of such treatment. To that end, this research presents a fast method that enables the estimation of deep tissue heat distribution by capturing and processing the transient temperature at the boundary based on a bio-heat transfer model. The theoretical model is rigorously developed and thoroughly validated by a series of experiments. A 10-fold improvement is demonstrated in resolution and visibility on tissue mimicking phantoms. The inverse problem is demonstrated as well with a successful application of the model for imaging deep-tissue embedded heat sources. Thereby, allowing the physician then ability to dynamically evaluate the hyperthermia treatment efficiency in real time.
Keywords: frequency modulation; nanoparticles; reconstruction; thermal imaging.