A COMPREHENSIVE TISSUE PROPERTIES DATABASE PROVIDED FOR THE THERMAL ASSESSMENT OF A HUMAN AT REST

Abstract

Accurate numerical calculation of the thermal profile in humans requires reliable estimates of the following five tissue properties: specific heat capacity (c), thermal conductivity (k), blood perfusion rates (m), metabolic heat production (A₀), and density (ρ). A sixth property, water content (w, as a %), can also be used to estimate c and k. To date, researchers have used various and inconsistent estimates of these parameters, which hinders comparison of the corresponding results. In an effort to standardize and improve the accuracy of these parameters for future studies, we have documented over 150 key papers and books and developed a database of the six thermal properties listed above for 43 human tissues. For each tissue and each property the following were obtained: the average value, the number of source values, the minimum and maximum of source values, and the reference for each source value. A key premise for the development of the database was to only use references that provided the original measurements. This database is offered for use by the biological thermal modeling community to help improve the accuracy and consistency of thermal modeling results.