Biomedical subjects

J D P van Dijk

Publications and source records attributed to J D P van Dijk.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Reliability of temperature and SAR measurements at oesophageal tumour locations.

INTRODUCTION: For treatment of oesophageal cancer, neo-adjuvant locoregional hyperthermia (HT) has been applied in combination with chemotherapy (ChT) +/- radiotherapy (RT) at the institute. Until now, 26 patients were treated within a completed phase I study combining HT with ChT and 29 patients within an ongoing phase II study combining HT with ChT + RT. METHODS: HT was given with the 70 MHz AMC-4 waveguide system. Initially, oesophageal temperatures were measured using multi-sensor thermocouple probes (TCs) inside a nasogastric tube (NT), but the question arose whether these measurements were reliable enough to quantify the achieved tumour temperatures accurately. Presently, TCs are mounted on the outside of an inflatable balloon catheter (BC) for better intra-luminal fixation and better contact with the tumour. During 14 treatment sessions in four patients TCs inside a NT and mounted on a BC were used simultaneously. Data from these 14 treatment sessions were used to compare temperature and Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) measurements ('DeltaT-measurements') using NTs or BCs. To determine the predictive value of the local SAR for the tumour temperatures achieved during treatment, the relation between the initial DeltaT and steady state temperature (SST) was evaluated. RESULTS: There was a strong correlation between the temperature measured in the NT (Ttube) and the temperature measured with a BC (Tballoon): R = 0.88 +/- 0.13. However, Ttube was on average approximately 1 degrees C higher than Tballoon and there was a large variation between the different treatments in the relation between both measurements, rendering Ttube a probably unreliable measure for tumour temperatures. The correlation between the DeltaT measured in the NT (DeltaTtube) and with a BC (DeltaTballoon) was rather weak: R = 0.46 +/- 0.25. The correlation between the initial DeltaT and the SST was much stronger for the BC measurements, R = 0.78 +/- 0.19, than for the NT measurements, R = 0.61 +/- 0.23. Thus, DeltaTballoon has a higher predictive value for the achieved tumour temperatures than DeltaTtube. Both DeltaT and SST were generally higher for the NT measurements than for the BC measurements, suggesting an over-estimation of tumour temperatures. Averaged over all treatments in the phase I trial using a NT (20 treatments) or a BC (45 treatments), T90 was significantly higher when measured with a NT. CONCLUSION: Oesophageal temperature and SAR (DeltaT) measurements inside a NT are less reliable than BC measurements. These artefacts are due to bad thermal contact with the tumour tissue and are, therefore, not specific for thermocouple thermometry. For reliable temperature or SAR measurements inside lumina or cavities good thermal contact must be assured, e.g. by using a balloon catheter.

Brachytherapy↗

PubMed2005

On estimation of the temperature maximum in intraluminal or intracavitary hyperthermia.

During intraluminal or intracavitary hyperthermia treatments, limited non-invasive temperature information is available, which may result in sub-optimal treatment control. This article describes a method for estimating temperature maximums and their corresponding locations in tissue heated by a cylindrical applicator with an incorporated cooling system, assuming a hollow cylinder of homogeneous tissue. The main purpose of this study is intraluminal heating of tumours at the oesophagus, but the principle described is generally applicable for cylindrical applicators. When assuming no perfusion and only radial heat flow in the heated tissue, an analytical expression for the temperature profile can be derived such that the complete profile can be reconstructed from the inner wall temperature only. For situations with perfusion, finite difference simulations have been performed and the resulting simulated inner wall temperature was put into the analytical expression to obtain an estimation for the maximum temperature and the corresponding location. This way, an estimation method was developed which does not require a priori knowledge of the perfusion rate or invasive thermometry. For volumetric perfusion rates in the clinically relevant range of 0-10 kg m-3 s-1, the deviations between simulated and estimated temperature maximums were less than 10% and the difference in location was typically a few tenths of a millimetre. These deviations are small enough for treatment control purposes.

Humans↗

PubMed2004

A feasibility study in oesophageal carcinoma using deep loco-regional hyperthermia combined with concurrent chemotherapy followed by surgery.

This phase I-II study investigated the feasibility of external deep loco-regional hyperthermia in localized primarily operable carcinoma of the thoracic oesophagus and gastro-oesophageal junction. Toxicity when combining neo-adjuvant hyperthermia with concurrent chemotherapy (CDDP and etoposide) was evaluated. Hyperthermia was given with a four antenna array, operating at 70 MHz arranged around the thorax. Temperatures were monitored rectally, intra-oesophageal at tumour level and intramuscular near the spine. In four steps, a thermal dose escalation was performed from 15-60 min of heating to 41 degrees C with two patients in each step. The combined treatment courses were repeated every 3 weeks for a maximum of four courses. From January 1999-February 2002, 31 patients were included. Pre-treatment tumour stage mainly consisted of T3N1 (stage III) tumours, with a mean length of 6 cm. The maximum tumour temperature failed to reach at least 41 degrees C in five patients during the test session of hyperthermia alone. Combined hyperthermia and chemotherapy was given 55 times in 26 patients. The amplitude was set at a ratio between top:bottom:left:right = 1:3:3:3, with a power range of 800-1000 W. Thermal data showed that is was technically feasible to heat the oesophagus; the median results were T(90) = 39.3 degrees C, T(50) = 40 degrees C, T(10) = 40.7 degrees C and a median T(max) = 41.9 degrees C. In more distally located tumours higher temperatures were reached. In one patient, a transient grade 2 sensory neuropathy was seen. Further toxicity was mainly of haematological origin. Blisters or fat necrosis were not observed. Twenty-two patients underwent oesophageal-cardia resection with gastric tube reconstruction. There was no report of complications in the post-operative phase, which could be contributed to either the prior chemotherapy or the hyperthermia.

Adenocarcinoma↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A flexible optimization tool for hyperthermia treatments with RF phased array systems.

In hyperthermia treatments performed with a radio-frequency phased array, the main issue to apply the excitation amplitudes and phases of the applicators for which tumour heating is optimal, i.e. the maximal therapeutic gain without unwanted side effects. Due to the complex interaction of the radiated EM-field and the patient's tissues, it is very difficult to find these optimal excitation (amplitude and phase) parameters by intuition. Calculation of the EM-field distribution within the patient can aid in finding the optimal excitation setting. However, this remains a difficult task because of the degrees of freedom available (2n - 1, with n the number of applicators in the array) and because a large temperature elevation may occur at healthy tissue sites resulting in unwanted side effects, e.g. pain or healthy tissue damage. Therefore, determining the excitation amplitudes and phases yielding optimal tumour heating can be done effectively only by application of a computerized optimization procedure. Optimization of the temperature distribution in the patient requires detailed knowledge of the thermal tissue parameters. Techniques for determining these properties are not commonly available and the use of averaged values for parameters like the tissue perfusion is expected to introduce large errors for individual patient treatment planning. As a consequence, the SAR distribution, being proportional to the temperature increase at treatment start, is more often selected for optimization. The 'optimized' excitation amplitudes and phases are found by maximization of a certain SAR ratio. Several propositions for this SAR ratio have been reported in the literature, e.g. the ratio of the SAR at the tumour site and the SAR at sites where unwanted side effects may occur. However, the definition of these ratios does not constrain the SAR value at these tissue locations to a safe value. In this paper, a tool for the optimization of the SAR distribution including the specification of constraints is presented. The tool focuses on the definition of the average SAR as a function of the excitation amplitudes and phases in a volume of arbitrary size (e.g. the tumour volume or the whole patient volume). These functions can be applied in either customized or commercially available optimization routines and they enable the definition of constraints for the average SAR in a certain volume. The described tool is illustrated for a patient case, showing the flexibility and easy application of the tool.

Hyperthermia, Induced↗