Thermal Dosimetry and Treatment Planning (Clinical Thermology Subseries Thermotherapy)

This book essentially deals with thermal dosimetry and presents the concept of bioheat transfer and the principles of thermal modeling, placing emphasis upon heat convection by blood flow and numerical methods of modeling. This information forms the basis of the development of computer simulations of treatment. These simulations are necessary to the future progress of thermotherapy, not only for patient treatment planning, but also for computer evaluations of equipment feedback control during treatments, and evaluation of therapies. Because of the fundamental and practical difficulties involved in developing high-resolution, accurate, and practical noninvasive thermometry systems, thermal dosimetry may be best achieved using computer treatment models plus limited clinical temperature data.