RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessment of Hyperbolic Heat Transfer Equation in Theoretical Modeling for Radiofrequency Heating Techniques
Juan A López-Molina1, Maria J Rivera1, Macarena Trujillo1, Fernando Burdío2, Juan L Lequerica3, Fernando Hornero4, Enrique J Berjano*, 5
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 22
Last Page: 27
Publisher ID: TOBEJ-2-22
DOI: 10.2174/1874120700802010022
Article History:
Received Date: 15/2/2008Revision Received Date: 24/3/2008
Acceptance Date: 25/3/2008
Electronic publication date: 10/4/2008
Collection year: 2008
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Theoretical modeling is a technique widely used to study the electrical-thermal performance of different surgical procedures based on tissue heating by use of radiofrequency (RF) currents. Most models employ a parabolic heat transfer equation (PHTE) based on Fourier’s theory, which assumes an infinite propagation speed of thermal energy. We recently proposed a one-dimensional model in which the electrical-thermal coupled problem was analytically solved by using a hyperbolic heat transfer equation (HHTE), i.e. by considering a non zero thermal relaxation time. In this study, we particularized this solution to three typical examples of RF heating of biological tissues: heating of the cornea for refractive surgery, cardiac ablation for eliminating arrhythmias, and hepatic ablation for destroying tumors. A comparison was made of the PHTE and HHTE solutions. The differences between their temperature profiles were found to be higher for lower times and shorter distances from the electrode surface. Our results therefore suggest that HHTE should be considered for RF heating of the cornea (which requires very small electrodes and a heating time of 0.6 s), and for rapid ablations in cardiac tissue (less than 30 s).