Improvement of the resonant cavity applicator for brain tumor hyperthermia - Computer simulation results -

This paper discusses new methods to control the heating pattern of the prototype resonant cavity applicator for deep tumor hyperthermia treatment. We have already confirmed the effectiveness of the developed heating system with experiments using agar phantoms and computer simulations. Here, the following two methods to control the heating pattern were proposed. In the first method, a human body, which was placed in the gap between the two inner electrodes, was only moved towards the electrode. In the second method, in addition to the first method, the diametric ratio of the inner electrodes was changed. According to our computer simulation of heating agar phantoms, we found that the hot spot was moved about 35% of the distance from the center of the agar phantom. It was found that the proposed heating methods were applicable to both deep and regional hyperthermia treatments.