Numerical Simulation of Transient Thermal Effects in Skin Tissue

Computer simulation on the transient thermal states of biological bodies which are usually governed by the Pennes bioheat equation involving blood perfusion and metabolic heat generation has gain increasing popularity and can be used to the noninvasive diagnosis with simple skin surface temperature measurement. The purpose of this paper is to provide information on the transient thermal effects of biological properties and ambient parameters by means of 2D finite element skin model based on MATLAB PDE Toolbox. Various cases including model validation, sensitivity analysis, burn evaluation and tumor detection are studied to illustrate the heating in the skin tissue to gain insight and weight the importance of each parameter. The results are verified with analytical and computational results obtained by previous studies on skin tissue. This promising simulation allows new possibility using MATLAB PDE Toolbox for thermal diagnostics in medical practices.