Thermal dosimetry for bladder hyperthermia treatment. An overview

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Medical Physics
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• The urinary bladder's fluid-filled nature facilitates heating but complicates thermometry due to motion and variable volume.
• Accurate temperature monitoring is essential for effective thermal treatment of bladder cancer, particularly for muscle-invasive and non-muscle-invasive types.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review current and emerging thermometry methods for bladder cancer hyperthermia.
• To discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various methods in the context of bladder cancer treatment.
• To highlight the importance of treatment simulation for determining delivered thermal dose.

Main Methods:

• Overview of invasive and non-invasive thermometry techniques.
• Discussion of their applicability to different bladder cancer subtypes and heating modalities.
• Evaluation of treatment simulation's role in thermal dose assessment.

Main Results:

• Invasive methods offer higher accuracy but limited spatial data; non-invasive methods face challenges with motion artifacts.
• A combination of invasive, non-invasive methods, and simulations is generally desirable for comprehensive monitoring.
• Ongoing research focuses on improving non-invasive thermometry and treatment planning software reliability.

Conclusions:

• Further research is needed to understand heating patterns and improve temperature measurement accuracy in the dynamic bladder environment.
• Enhanced thermometry and simulation capabilities will lead to more precise thermal dose determination.
• Optimized treatment parameters will result in more reliable and effective hyperthermia treatments for bladder cancer.