A heat transfer model of skin tissue for the detection of lesions:
sensitivity analysis.
Abstract
In this paper, we study the transient thermal response of skin layers to
determine to which extent the surface temperature distribution reflects the
properties of subsurface structures, such as benign or malignant lesions. Specifically,
we conduct a detailed sensitivity analysis to interpret the changes in the
surface temperature distribution as a function of variations in thermophysical
properties, blood perfusion rate, metabolic heat generation and thicknesses of
skin layers, using a multilayer computational model. These properties can vary
from individual to individual or depend on location, external and internal
influences, and in certain situations accurate property data are not available
in the literature. Therefore, the uncertainties in these data could potentially
affect the accuracy of the interpretation/diagnosis of a lesion in a clinical
setting. In this study, relevant parameters were varied within characteristic
physiological ranges, and differences in the surface temperature response were
quantified. It was observed that variations in these parameters have a small
influence on the surface temperature distribution. Analysis using this
multilayer model was further conducted to determine the sensitivity of
transient thermal response to different lesion sizes. This work validates the
idea of examining the transient thermal response obtained using a thermal
imaging system with the objective of lesion identification. The modeling effort
and the sensitivity analysis reported in this paper comprise a portion of a
comprehensive research effort involving experimentation on a skin phantom model
as well as measurements on patients in a clinical setting, that are currently
underway. One of the preliminary results from the ongoing clinical trial is
also included to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.
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