LAUSR

Abstract Magnetic hyperthermia ablates malignant cells by heating a tumor region when magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are subjected to a high-frequency magnetic field. The treatment effect for magnetic hyperthermia can be evaluated by the mortality of malignant cells, which is mainly determined by the temperature profile of therapeutic target, treatment duration, Arrhenius kinetic coefficients, and also the material of MNPs. Both of these interests should be designed properly for a clinical consideration. This paper evaluates the survival rate of malignant cells by using an improved Arrhenius model, in which both treatment temperature profile and therapeutic duration are all taken into consideration. The treatment temperature profile for a proposed geometric model is predicted by solving Pennes bio-heat transfer equation using finite element method, in which a heat source in form of a Gaussian distribution is used as the power dissipation of MNPs. In addition, a kind of MNPs with low Curie temperature is considered to further improve the therapeutic effect for magnetic hyperthermia in this paper. Simulation results demonstrate that the temperature profile considering the MNPs with low Curie temperature can be more homogeneous than the case using Fe 3 O 4 particles if their power dissipation are increased properly with respect to a critical value for the Fe 3 O 4 particles. This better distribution in treatment temperature will then result in an obviously positive effects in malignant ablation for magnetic hyperthermia. Meanwhile, results also show that the survival rate of tumor cells is not only relevant to the therapeutic temperature and duration, but also depends more on the kinetic parameters due to the individual characteristic of malignant cells.