Development of a regional hyperthermia treatment planning system

• Published in: International journal of hyperthermia Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 207 - 220
• Main Authors: VAN DE KAMER, J. B, DE LEEUW, A. A. C, HORNSLETH, S. N, KROEZE, H, KOTTE, A. N. T. J, LAGENDIJK, J. J. W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Taylor & Francis 01.05.2001
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Electromagnetic Fields; Evaluation Studies as Topic; Fourier Analysis; Humans; Hyperthermia, Induced; Induced hyperthermia. Cryotherapy; Male; Medical sciences; Models, Anatomic; Prostatic Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging; Prostatic Neoplasms - therapy; Reproducibility of Results; Tomography, X-Ray Computed; Treatment with physical agents; Treatment. General aspects; Tumors; Human; Urinary system disease; Prostate disease; Male; Uterine cervix; Regional; Malignant tumor; Experimental study; Female genital diseases; Treatment; Female; Male genital diseases; Treatment planning; Prostate; Uterine cervix diseases; Computer aid; Induced hyperthermia; Test object
• ISSN: 0265-6736; 1464-5157
• DOI: 10.1080/02656730010017903

A flexible and fast regional hyperthermia treatment planning system for the Coaxial TEM System has been devised and is presented. Using Hounsfield Unit based thresholding and manually outlining of the tumour, a 40 cm CT data set (slice thickness 5 mm) is segmented and down scaled to a resolution of 1 cm, requiring only 30 min. The SAR model is based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The number of time steps to achieve numerical stability has been determined and was found to be 7000. Various optimizations of the SAR model have been applied, resulting in a relatively short computation time of 3.7 h (memory requirements 121 MB) on a Pentium III, 450 MHz standard personal computer, running GNU/Linux. The model has been validated using absolute value(Ez) measurements in a standard phantom inserted in the Coaxial TEM Applicator under different conditions and a good agreement was found. Hyperthermia treatment planning in combination with the homemade visualization tools have provided much insight in the regional hyperthermia treatment with the Coaxial TEM Applicator.