Thermal modeling of the normal woman's breast.

A comprehensive thermal model of the normal woman's breast is presented. The model is developed taking into consideration metabolic heat production, tissue perfusion with capillary blood, arterial and venous blood thermal interaction and change of arterial blood temperature with position. A series of computer programs are written using a 3-dimensional finite-element technique to evaluate the surface temperature distribution of the breast. Comparison between the results obtained for the model and those from thermograms of a woman's breast are in good agreement.