Measurement of Thermal Properties of Perfused Biological Tissue by Transient Heating with Focused Ultrasound

Recent interest in therapeutic hyperthermia as a cancer treatment modality have shown the need for accurate tissue thermal property values for therapy planning, optimization, and evaluation. Here a transient thermal pulse technique using a focused ultrasound beam as a heat source is decribed for the measurement of the t hermal properties of perfused and non-perfused tissues, in-vivo and in-vitro. Thermal diffusivity measurements were made in a variety of biological tissues, under perfused and non-perfused conditions and found to concur with tabulated values; in addition it is shown that by proper choice of experimental parameters the effect of perfusion may be minimized to obtain intrinsic property values in the presence of perfusion. A .Electrode