Magnetic fluid hyperthermia is one of hyperthermia modalities for tumor treatment. The control of temperatures is necessary and important for treatment quality. Living tissue is highly non-homogenous, and the velocity of heat transfer in it should be limited. Thus, this work analyzes the temperature rise behaviors in biological tissues during hyperthermia treatment within the dual-phase-lag model, which accounts the effect of local non-equilibrium on the thermal behavior. A small tumor surrounded by the health tissue is considered as a solid sphere. The influences of tag times, metabolic heat generation rate, blood perfusion rate, and other physiological parameters on the thermal response in tissues are investigated. While the metabolic heat generation takes little percentage of heating source, its effect on the temperature rise can be ignored. The control of the blood perfusion rate is helpful to have an ideal hyperthermia treatment. The lag times, tau(q) and tau(T), affect the bio-heat transfer at the early times of heating. The total effect of tau(q) and tau(T) on the bio-heat transfer may be different for the same tau(T)/tau(q), value. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.