A model of thermotherapy treatment for bladder cancer (Q326546)

In order to diminish the chances of recurrence of bladder cancer after surgical treatment, chemo-thermotherapy can be applied, which involves heating of the chemotherapy drug by microwaves. In the present article, a model is developed which describes the time evolution of heat in this scenario by a convection-diffusion equation with a source term depending on the strength of an electric field that in turn is governed by Maxwell's equations. This coupled system is solved numerically in a domain based on a computer tomographic image of a human bladder, for parameter values describing de-ionized water and salty water in the bladder, respectively. Some medical conclusions are drawn. In an appendix, the discretization of the equations is described.