Light dosimetry for multiple cylindrical diffusing sources for use in photodynamic therapy

Since prostatic carcinoma is usually multifocal within the prostate, effective photodynamic therapy (PDT) of prostatic carcinoma is expected to require the photochemical destruction of the entire organ. Accurate light dosimetry will be essential to avoid damage to proximal sensitive tissue such as the rectum. The prostate will be illuminated using interstitial cylindrical fibreoptic light sources and, because of the limited transparency of prostate tissue, these sources will be mounted in a parallel array analogous to the source array used in brachytherapy. Both source spacing and the light delivered to each source will control light dosimetry from a parallel array of fibreoptic sources implanted into tissue. Clinical PDT will require dose planning in order to determine the position and illumination of each source prior to treatment, but unfortunately few methods of predicting light fluence from cylindrical interstitial sources currently exist. In this paper, a novel light fluence model is used to predict tissue transillumination resulting from cylindrical interstitial sources. The cylindrical source is modelled as a finite array of infinitesimal small sources using Christian Huygens' famous single-slit diffraction model. We show that this source model when combined with a robust derivation of fluence in a spherical geometry using diffusion theory, accurately predicts fluence levels from a single cylindrical source in a variety of media. This method is found to retain its accuracy near the sources. With a simple extension, this fluence model is used to predict the light fluence levels from an array of three sources and the predicted fluence is found to compare favourably with experimental data.