A Clinical Hyperthermia Unit Utilising an Array of Seven Focussed Ultrasonic Transducers

Ultrasound hyperthermia control system for deep-seated tumours: Ex vivo study of excised tumours, modeling of thermal profile and future nanoengineering aspects

“…Researchers [8,9,32,33] extend earlier models to show that the effect of curved surfaces, reflection, and refraction are negligible as most soft-tissue interfaces occur inside. However, for strongly curved surfaces and for bone and air interfaces, investigators have modeled the transmission of ultrasound through the skull for the treatment of brain tumours and/or producing controlled lesions [6][7][8].…”

“…The air bubbles pulsation absorbs acoustical energy and increases the tissue heating. The presence of cavitation bubbles in front of the transducer focus results in nonsymmetrical lesion positioning with respect to the transducer focus [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40].…”

“…Prostate parenchyma presented with coagulation and haemorrhagic necrosis, with sharp limits with normal untreated prostatic tissue. In five patients, residual tumour cells were isolated from the precapsular peripheral zone of the prostate and in 11 cases, residual tumour cells were found in the untreated anterior part of the gland [3,5,7,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][45][46][47][48][49][50].…”

“…An external local ultrasound system has been developed to induce controlled hyperthermia of subcutaneously implanted tumours in small animals (e.g., mice and rats). It was designed to be compatible with a small animal positron emission tomography scanner (microPET) to facilitate studies of hyperthermia-induced tumour re-oxygenation using a PET radiopharmaceutical, but it is applicable for any small animal study requiring controlled heating [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][45][46][47][48][49][50].…”

Hyperthermia Classic Commentary: ‘A scanned, focused, multiple transducer ultrasonic system for localised hyperthermia treatments’, by K. Hynynen, R. Roemer, D. Anhalt, et al.,International Journal of Hyperthermia1987;3:21–35

“…In addition, the transducers were housed in the patient treatment bed to allow easy patient access and positioning. These added features made the system much more suitable for routine clinical treatments than the earlier systems, which used water bags hanging over the patient to couple the transducer head to the patient [9,12]. Our paper demonstrated in vivo that up to 12-cm deep tissues could be selectively heated with the focused ultrasound beams.…”