Heat transfer in patients under hypothermic conditions

Most bio-heat transfer models for patients under hypothermic conditions contain three sub-models: a passive heat transfer model, an active coupling between local blood flow and temperature, and a pharmacological model to incorporate the effects of drugs. In this paper an illustrative example will be given focussed on scalp cooling to prevent chemotherapy induced hair loss. Scalp cooling can reduce hair loss. Unfortunately, the efficacy of scalp cooling varies strongly. A systematic evaluation of the current hypothesis for the hair preservative effect of scalp cooling is necessary for a better understanding of the various important parameters of scalp cooling. To quantify the contribution of the putative mechanisms of scalp cooling, a computational model was developed, partly based on experimental data. With the complete model, we evaluated the effect of several scalp cooling protocol parameters.