Basic study on magnetically induced hyperthermia for brain heating

Abstract

It is very difficult to heat deep seated tumor surrounded by low conductivity tissues, such as bone and fat. We proposed a new RF magnetically induced method for this deep regional hyperthermia. To get high density of induced current in deep tissues, we arranged 4 coils around the sphere agar phantom. The frequency of exciting current is 13.56 MHz. In this paper, we will show the calculation method of SAR distribution and temperature distribution in 3D inhomogenous model. We also discuss the possibility of this heating method from both experiment and calculated results. In the phantom experiment we examined two types of the coils. The calculated results and experimental results show a good agreement, these therefore the reliability of this calculation method was confirmed. The heating pattern of these coils were not very effective for deep regional hyperthermia. We also calculated temperature distribution in the brain model which was constructed from CT images. We assumed tumor in the brain with half of the blood flow compare to normal tissue. Deep seated tumor was heated by the effect of inhomogeneity and blood flow, except there were hot spots near the coil. In the case of shallow region heating, we can get effective localized heating pattern. From these results, we cannot surely say that this heating method is quite sufficient for deep regional hyperthermia. But since there is no other method to successfully heat the brain non-invasively, this kind of examination with other coil patterns must be continued.