Modelling heat transfer in humans

Temperature plays an important role in the functioning of biological systems. To predict tissue temperatures, the influence of blood flow must be accounted for. The collective effect of blood vessels in a tissue volume may be reasonably successfully described by a heatsink. This is for instance the case in our study of using scalp cooling to prevent hair loss induced by chemotherapy. In the calculation of overall temperature distributions the thermoregulatory mechanisms of vasoaction, sweating and shivering need to be considered. Models get increasingly sophisticated, but accurate predictions for individuals (rather than average behaviour) remain difficult because of the many influencing factors. A predictive tool for individual patients, including effect of anaesthesia, is being developed for use during hypothermic (cardiac) surgery.