In RF-ablation hyperthermic therapy electric current flow is applied inside tissues in order to produce a localized temperature increase for treating liver tumours: the prediction of the thermal field distribution is useful to the surgeon in order to optimise the treatment and numerical approaches are crucial for providing such information. The paper presents a procedure able to compute the applied electric current and thermal distributions inside the human body. It resorts to a compact and agile finite formulation based on the Cell Method, an approach to the numerical solution of physical field problems that has been recently applied to electromagnetic computations: its major advantage consists in avoiding any cumbersome processes of conversion in discrete form complex differential formulations, as usually needed by conventional numerical field methods. In order to highlight the procedure capabilities, an application to the solution of a real case of treatment of liver metastasis is presented.
The Prediction of Temperature Distribution in RF-Ablation Therapy by Means of the Cell Method
BULLO, MARCO;DUGHIERO, FABRIZIO;GUARNIERI, MASSIMO
2006
Abstract
In RF-ablation hyperthermic therapy electric current flow is applied inside tissues in order to produce a localized temperature increase for treating liver tumours: the prediction of the thermal field distribution is useful to the surgeon in order to optimise the treatment and numerical approaches are crucial for providing such information. The paper presents a procedure able to compute the applied electric current and thermal distributions inside the human body. It resorts to a compact and agile finite formulation based on the Cell Method, an approach to the numerical solution of physical field problems that has been recently applied to electromagnetic computations: its major advantage consists in avoiding any cumbersome processes of conversion in discrete form complex differential formulations, as usually needed by conventional numerical field methods. In order to highlight the procedure capabilities, an application to the solution of a real case of treatment of liver metastasis is presented.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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