Thermal influence of brain tumor on MRI images with anisotropic properties

Abstract

The main aim of the present paper is the analysis of brain tumors thermal influence on simulated MRI T1-weighted signal intensity by considering tumor anisotropic properties. MRI offers a rich information of the studied tissues and tumors according to the MR nuclear parameters such as T1, T2 and proton density. However, some of these parameters change depending on the temperature. The temperature distribution in tumorous area is higher than surrounding normal tissues, which causes a significant changes on MR parameters, the studied MR parameter in this work is T1 relaxation time. The thermal effect of tumor is calculated by estimating tumor thermal profile, which is converted to T1-weighted signal intensity using Spin Echo sequence (SE). In this wok, numerical strategy by finite difference method was used to solve the Pennes bioheat transfer equation. We considered tumor anisotropic thermal conductivity tensor and found has a significant influence regarding the thermal profile on the tumorous region.