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The work is devoted to the study of the theoretical value of destructive influence on normal tissues of an organism by infrared radiation that goes beyond the treated pathological focus. This situation is possible if the direct laser radiation on the tissues is extremely long-acting. The solution to this problem can be the uniform distribution of heat inside the volume through indirect heating of the liquid, which contributes to minimal damage to the perifocal structures. A non-stationary thermophysical model of the process of heat propagation in biological tissues is presented, allowing to carry out studies of energy transfer from internal liquid contents of Baker's cyst heated by infrared laser radiation of a given specific power through a certain thickness of its wall to surrounding biological tissues. Calculation of the spacetime temperature distribution in the cyst wall and surrounding fat tissue is carried out by the finite-difference method. The time of effective exposure to temperature on the entire thickness of the cyst wall was estimated to be 55 ° C on its outer surface. The safety procedure ensures the exposure duration of this value is not more than 10 seconds.

As a result of the calculations carried out, it is established that there are several operating modes of a surgical laser that meet all the safety requirements with a simultaneous effective procedure. Local one-sided hyperthermia of the synovial membrane and subsequent coagulation of the entire wall thickness due to heat transfer contributes to the elimination of the cavity neoplasm of the popliteal region. With a thickness of 3 mm, the heating mode is satisfactory, under which the exposure time lasts about 200 seconds, and the specific power of the laser radiation in the internal medium of the liquid contents of the Baker cyst is approximately 1.

The paper presents a computational model of the thermal state of the breast with an interstitial tumor. The model is based on the modified Pennes biothermal equation and describes a five-layered biological area including skin, subcutaneous fat, glandular and muscular tissues, as well as a neoplasm zone. Convective heat exchange with the environment is taken into account at the outer boundary, and body temperature is maintained at the internal boundary. In addition, the fabric surface is exposed to exponentially attenuating effects of spatial heating, such a heating scheme is actually based on the Bouguer – Lambert – Baer law. Tissue thermal conductivity and blood perfusion are modeled by linear functions of temperature, reflecting physiological thermoregulation. The boundary-value problem for the partial differential equation has been solved numerically using an explicit-implicit finite difference scheme; the system of algebraic equations getting after an approximation of the mentioned boundary-value problem is solved by the Thomas procedure. Numerical experiments have shown that even a small tumor increases the local temperature of tissues by half a degree due to increased metabolism and delayed blood perfusion. This anomaly is clearly manifested in tumors larger than ten millimeters. It was found that the depth of occurrence critically affects the thermal response: when the tumor is located closer to the surface, the maximum temperature shifts to the skin, whereas at a deeper position, a thermal peak forms inside the glandular tissue. The effectiveness of hyperthermic exposure was assessed by the integral criterion of thermal necrosis based on the Arrhenius law. At a radiation intensity that creates a surface thermal load of about five kilowatts per square meter and an attenuation factor of one hundred, tumor destruction begins after two to three minutes of exposure, while the surrounding healthy tissues remain within safe temperatures. Reducing the attenuation coefficient leads to the opposite effect: heat spreads deeper, and the glandular tissue is damaged first, which limits the therapeutic window. Additionally, maps of the distribution of temperature, time to necrosis, and the depth of thermal damage were constructed depending on the irradiation power, diameter, and position of the tumor.