Spatiotemporal temperature in a tumor during nanorod assisted thermal therapy

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles, especially nanorods, are emerging as a promising future material to achieve targeted thermal treatment for cancer. The treatment involves nanoparticle-radiation interaction phenomenon to generate the heat confined to a specific region. Obtaining effective treatments requires a more detailed theoretical understanding of this phenomenon. This study evaluates the temperature field in a tumor tissue embedded with gold nanorods, considering a two dimensional domain representing a skin tumor, irradiated with near infrared radiation. The results indicate that it is possible to localize the heat damage to the tumor region while surrounding healthy tissues are spared. The developed numerical model predicts the temperature through various input of the involved process parameters like size, concentration and irradiation intensity.