COMPUTER AIDED ANALYSIS OF ELECTROMAGNETICALLY INDUCED H

尽管它的全部潜力仍然未知，但它的出现 热疗作为一种辅助癌症疗法，已经成为一种令人兴奋的临床疗法。 发展。热疗与常规放射治疗有协同作用 化疗，采取行动提高其治疗效益。然而， 热疗作为一种治疗方式的评价仍然存在。 难以捉摸不仅是因为目前的设备不能 在肿瘤中持续产生升高的体温，也是因为它 很难确定治疗温度在多大程度上 都是在典型的治疗过程中达到的。这种状态- 事务放大了对工具的需求，以(1)评估业绩 在现有热传递系统的患者中，(2)加速了临床 提供更一致的热疗的能力和(3)评估最佳 在临床上加热特定肿瘤部位的方法。这一行动的主要目标是 项目的目的是以以下形式向临床社区提供此类工具 三维治疗计划软件。研究中心的具体目标 关于该软件的开发、表征和应用 为了(一)提高深部电磁加热的质量 目前在临床上用于治疗腹部和盆腔肿瘤， 尤其是前列腺癌，其治疗是重中之重 在国家癌症研究所(II)提高对 这些患者在局部热疗期间产生的加热率分布 解剖部位，(三)评价有限元的有效性 治疗计划辅助方法在电磁输送中的应用 对这些区域进行热疗，并(Iv)调查特定部位 应用系统，并从理论上评估其整体临床 潜力。项目的核心活动是回顾分析 由于疼痛限制或治疗效果不佳的患者 不明原因的加热失败，优化替代治疗 战略，包括治疗规划技术的发展 它们在治疗过程中是适应的，并且 通过实验室对计算模型进行实验验证 旨在测试特定模型属性的研究。有一种强烈的 通过计算机模拟进行这些调查的基本原理 体温过高的治疗，并相信它们将有助于 热疗设备的成熟及其在临床试验中的应用 此外，对临床治疗的分析对于量化是必不可少的。 加热技术使得测试体温过高的临床试验 可以提高疗效，而不是提高受热能力。

Even though its full potential is still unknown, the emergence of hyperthermia as an adjuvant cancer therapy has been an exciting clinical development. Hyperthermia is synergistic with conventional radiation and chemotherapies, acting to enhance their therapeutic benefits. However, the evaluation of hyperthermia as a treatment modality has remained elusive not only due to the fact that present equipment cannot consistently produce elevated temperatures in tumors, but also because it is difficult to determine the extent to which therapeutic temperatures have been reached during a typical treatment session. This state-of- affairs has magnified the need for tools to (1) evaluate the performance in patients of present heat delivery systems, (2) accelerate the clinical ability to deliver more consistent heat therapy and (3) assess the best ways to heat specific tumor sites in the clinic. The major goal of this project is to provide such tools to the clinical community in the form of 3D treatment planning softwares. The specific aims of the research center on the development, characterization, and application of this software in order to (i) improve the quality of deep electromagnetic heating as currently practiced in the clinic for abdominal and pelvic tumors, especially prostatic carcinomas the treatment of which are top priorities at the National Cancer Institute (ii) improve the basic understanding of heating rate distributions produced during regional hyperthermia in these anatomical sites, (iii) evaluate the effectiveness of finite element methods as treatment planning aids in the delivery of electromagnetic hyperthermia to these regions and (iv) investigate site specific applicator systems and theoretically evaluate their overall clinical potential. The core activities of the project are retrospective analyses of patient treatments which fared poorly due to pain limitations or unexplained failure to heat, optimization of alternative treatment strategies including the development of treatment planning techniques which are adaptive over the time-course of therapy delivery and experimental verification of computational models though laboratory studies designed to test specific model attributes. There is a strong rationale to pursue these investigations with computer simulations of hyperthermia treatments and to believe that they will aid in the maturation of hyperthermia equipment and its use for clinical trials. Further, analyses of clinical treatments are essential for quantifying heating technologies so that clinical trials which test hyperthermia efficacy rather than ability to heat can be developed.