A novel local thermal non-equilibrium model for biological tissue applied to multiple-antennas configurations for thermal ablation

The relevance of thermal ablation in cancer treatment is growing through the years, because it involves fewer complications, a shorter hospital stays, and less costs. In this article, the effects of different antennas configurations in thermal ablation are investigated. Single, double, and triple antennas configurations are modeled in order to simulate the hepatic cancer treatment, which often requires the destruction of large volume lesions. The tissue is modeled as a porous domain made up by a solid phase (cells and interstitial spaces) and a fluid phase (blood). The generic heat sources are referred only to a part of this domain, and they supply equal total power and energy for the different configurations. A Local Thermal Non-Equilibrium (LTNE) model is employed, modified in order to include two-phase water vaporization (tissue and blood). Two different blood volume fractions in liver were considered and four different blood velocity were modeled. Governing equations with the appropriate boundary conditions are solved with the finite-element code COMSOL Multiphysics®. Results are presented in terms of temperature fields and tissue damage for the three different configurations and they show how using multiple antennas offers a potential solution for creating ablation zones with larger dimensions.