Simplified Medium Scale FEM Numerical Models of Magnetic Nanoparticle Heating: Study of Thermal Boundary Condition Effects

Magnetic nanoparticles are currently under intense investigation as a heating strategy for hyperthermia cancer treatment because they are promising as a means to target the heating specifically to the tumor.[1–4] Currently, our ability to create practical and useful numerical models in dimensional spaces similar to ordinary small tumors is severely hampered by the multiple orders of magnitude of the relative scales: nm to mm. Consequently, the preponderance of literature on the topic describes experimental studies only. Detailed individual nanoparticle model spaces with moderate dimensions up to mm would be nearly intractably computationally intensive, requiring peta-scale computing resources. It would advance the state of the art to be able to apply practical computing machinery to analyze realistic medium scale in vivo systems. Such a tool could be reasonably applied in experimental analysis, and potentially in treatment planning and assessment.