Estimation of thermal conductivity of cortical and cancellous bone, muscle, fat, and chondrosarcoma tumor phantoms by using the hot plate method: preliminary study.

The thermal properties in biological tissue phantoms have high relevance in the preliminary evaluation of thermal therapies, such as microwave thermal ablation, in order to optimally target cancer cells. Since thermal conductivity describes how heat will be transported in the tissue, it is a relevant property in the evaluation of microwave ablation systems. Therefore, phantoms considering not only dielectric properties, such as relative permittivity and electrical conductivity, but also thermal conductivity are required. The main goal is focused on the estimation of thermal conductivity of different tissue phantoms such as chondrosarcoma (bone tumor), cortical and cancellous bone, muscle and fat. Preliminary results implementing the hot plate method show a value of thermal conductivity for chondrosarcoma tumor of 0.424 ± 0.033 W m-1 K-1, comparable to muscle (0.45 ± 0.128 W m-1 K-1), having an average variation between these tissue phantoms of 0.027 W m-1 K-1. The thermal conductivity values obtained for the remaining biological tissues are as follows: Fat 0.306 ± 0.094 W m-1 K-1, cortical bone 0.487 ± 0.077 W m-1 K-1 and cancellous bone 0.397 ± 0.075 W m-1 K-1. This study advances our understanding of the thermal properties of chondrosarcoma tumor and its surrounding tissues, enabling more effective treatment evaluations.Clinical Relevance- A preliminary estimation of thermal conductivity in biological tissue phantoms (including chondrosarcoma tumor) is reported. This information could be of great relevance in the evaluation of new microwave ablation systems designed to treat bone tumors; mainly, because thermal conductivity describes how the heat is going to be transported in tissues.