Abstract
The objective of the present study is to solidify the foundation for predicting temperature distribution during cryosurgery. To this end, experiments on freezing of a tissue phantom were conducted first using a specially fabricated cryoprobe that produced an axially uniform, axisymmetric ice. The measured temperature distribution and the size of the ice ball were compared with the results of 1-D simulation based on a theoretical model that took into account of freezing in terms of a source term in the heat conduction equation. After confirming that the simulation agreed well with the experiments, a 2-D simulation of freezing around a commercially available cryoprobe was conducted to provide useful information about the temperature distribution in the ice ball. The margin of ice ball that is required to freeze beyond a malignant tissue to completely destroy cancer cells was shown as a function of the size of ice ball, which would be monitored during cryosurgery using MRI.
