Three-dimensional Numerical Evaluation of Skin Surface Thermal Contrast - Thermal Contrast Analysis of Breast Tumors Using Hypothermia - COMSOL Multiphysics Study

Oct 20, 2026

Uploaded by Ivy

Thermal procedures are used to enhance thermal contrast in thermographic imaging to support early breast cancer diagnosis. This study analyzes thermal contrast across different breast-tumor stages and depths under hypothermia, using active thermography to assess how metabolic heat generation and adipose-tissue composition affect contrast. A three-dimensional breast-like model is solved via the Pennes equation in COMSOL Multiphysics, including stationary cooling simulation and thermal recovery phases.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Background and Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 236 (2023) 107562 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine journal [homepage:](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cmpb)[ www.elsevier.com/locate/cmpb](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cmpb) | Three-dimensional numerical evaluation of skin surface thermal contrast by application of hypothermia at different depths and sizes of the breast tumor
Tarcio Cardoso Barrosa, Alisson Augusto Azevedo Figueiredo a,b,∗
a Department of Mechanical Engineering, State University of Maranhao, Sao Luis, Brazil
b Post-Graduate Program in Mechanical Engineering, Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Maranhao, Sao Luis, Brazil | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | a r t i c l e i n f o | | a b s t r a c t | | | Article history:
Received 23 September 2022
Revised 30 March 2023
Accepted 19 April 2023 | | Background and Objective: Thermal procedures can provide improvements in the thermal contrast of thermographic images in an attempt to diagnose early cases of breast cancer. This work aims to analyze the thermal contrast of different stages and depths of breast tumors from hypothermia treatment using an active thermography analysis. The inﬂuence of variation in metabolic heat generation and adipose tissue composition on thermal contrasts is also analyzed.
Methods: The proposed methodology was based on the solution of the Pennes equation for a threedimensional model similar to the real anatomy of the breast by commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics. The thermal procedure consists of three steps: Stationary, hypothermia and thermal recovery. During hypothermia, the boundary condition of the external surface was replaced by a constant temperature of 0, 5, 10, and 15 ◦ C, simulating a gel pack, for cooling times of up to 20 min. In the thermal recovery, after the removal of the cooling, the breast was submitted again to the condition of natural convection on the external surface.
Results: Thermal contrasts in superﬁcial tumors, for all hypothermia resulted in improvements in thermographs. For smallest tumor, the use of high resolution and sensitive thermal imaging cameras to acquire this thermal change may be necessary. For tumor of diameter of 10 cm, cooling from 0 ◦ C can increase the thermal contrast by up to 136% compared to the passive thermography. Analyzes with deeper tumors showed very small temperature variations. Even so, the thermal contrast gain in cooling at 0 ◦ C for the tumor with a diameter of 1 cm reached 37% in relation to passive thermography.
Conclusions: Thus, this work contributes as an important tool in the analysis of the appropriate use of hypothermia for different cases in early stages of breast cancer, considering that long times are needed to obtain the best thermal contrast.
© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. | | | Keywords:
Tumor
Thermal contrast Hypothermia Simulation Thermography | | | | 1. Introduction The main causes of death in the world are related to cancer. The new diagnosed cases are approximately 1,918,030, equivalent to 5250 cases per day. Approximately 51,400 new cases of ductal carcinoma in situ in women and 97,920 cases of melanoma in situ diagnosed in 2022 [1]. There are several screening techniques to detect breast cancer, especially self-examination, mammography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound, among others. All the techniques used by ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [tarcio.eng@outlook.com](tarcio.eng@outlook.com) (T.C. Barros), alissonﬁ[gueiredo@professor.uema.br](gueiredo@professor.uema.br) (A.A.A. Figueiredo). medicine present percentages of false positive occurrences in diagnoses [2]. The easiest and most available technique is manual self-examination, however, with a high rate of false positives [3]. Currently, mammography is generally indicated for the screening of breast abnormalities mainly in the age gr

FAQs

What is the objective of applying hypothermia to thermographic imaging in this work?

The study aims to analyze how hypothermia changes the thermal contrast of breast tumors across different stages and depths, to support early diagnosis attempts.

How was the thermal procedure simulated?

A three-dimensional breast model was solved using the Pennes equation in COMSOL Multiphysics, with three steps: stationary baseline, hypothermia cooling using constant external surface temperatures, and thermal recovery with natural convection.

What were the main findings about thermal contrast changes?

Cooling improved thermal contrasts for superficial tumors across all hypothermia settings; for example, cooling from 0 °C increased contrast up to 136% for a 10 cm tumor, while deeper tumors showed smaller variations.

Oct 20, 2026

Uploaded by Ivy