Thermostatic Hyperthermia with Non-invasive Temperature Monitoring through Speed of Sound Imaging

TL;DR

This paper presents a non-invasive thermostatic hyperthermia method combining high-intensity focused ultrasound with ultrasound imaging and speed of sound-based temperature monitoring, demonstrating precise temperature control for tumor treatment.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated approach using SOS imaging for real-time temperature monitoring during HIFU hyperthermia therapy, enhancing clinical feasibility.

Findings

Achieved 0.2°C maximum temperature fluctuation over 5 hours in simulations

Validated the feasibility of SOS-based temperature detection for hyperthermia

Demonstrated combined ultrasound transducer use for therapy and imaging

Abstract

Hyperthermia therapy (HT) is used to treat diseases through heating of high temperature usually in conjunction with some other medical therapeutics like chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In this study, we propose a promising thermostatic hyperthermia method that uses high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for clinical tumor treatment combined with diagnostic ultrasound image guidance and non-invasive temperature monitoring through the speed of sound (SOS) imaging. HIFU heating is realized by a ring ultrasound transducer array with 256 elements. The inner structure information of thigh tissue is obtained by B-mode ultrasound imaging. Since the relationship between the temperature and the SOS in the different human tissue is available, the temperature detection is converted to the SOS detection obtained by the full-wave inversion (FWI) method. Simulation results show that our model can achieve expected thermostatic hyperthermia on tumor target with 0.2 degree maximum temperature fluctuation for 5 hours. This study verifies the feasibility of the proposed thermostatic hyperthermia model. Furthermore, the temperature measurement can share the same ultrasound transducer array for HIFU heating and B-mode ultrasound imaging, which provides a guiding significance for clinical application.