Effect of hepatic vein on gold nanoparticle-mediated hyperthermia in liver cancer

Gold nanoparticle-mediated hyperthermia is a non-invasive, target-based cancer treatment with significantly reduced side effects compared to conventional treatments. In this work a simulation model for gold nanoparticlemediated hyperthermia is set up and used to investigate the case of a liver tumor located in the vicinity of a hepatic vein. Gold nanorods with optimized size and aspect ratio are embedded within the liver, and the temperature raise under CW laser illumination is calculated, while taking into account the convective heat transfer through blood perfusion. For this purpose, an analytical model based on the Navier-Stokes equation is used. Results show that due to the heat drain in the blood stream, an effective temperature raise is not achievable when the tumor is located in the vicinity of the hepatic vein. Additionally it is shown that even in the case of a 90% occluded vein, the temperature raise with such nanoparticle arrangement is still not enough for tumor ablation.