


The following work represents the development and evaluation of a minimax optimization-based inverse treatment planning approach for interstitial thermal therapy of cancer and benign disease. Ultimately, after overcoming the various uncertainties, this may lead to dose prescription. CONCLUSIONS: Many publications on HTP show that HTP can be considered a feasible method to optimise and control a hyperthermia treatment, with the objective to enhance treatment quality and documentation. The Rotterdam experience: To illustrate the implementation of HTP guided steering, the Rotterdam approach of complaint adaptive steering is elaborated, in which optimisation is adapted with increased constraints on tissues with heat-induced discomfort. active HTP guided steering or image guided hyperthermia by non-invasive thermometry (NIT). target centre point (TCP) steering, often called 'target steering', or only pretreatment planning versus advanced, i.e. STEERING STRATEGIES: In the clinic, different approaches are possible: simple, i.e. Accurate patient positioning and organ-specific segmentation can be helpful in minimising the differences between model and clinic. In the translation from HTP models to the clinic, the main aspect is accurate representation of the actual treatment situation in the HTP models. Model validation is necessary to check if this is implemented well. To implement these simulations, accurate applicator models and accurate knowledge of dielectric and thermal parameters is mandatory.
Hyperplan equation software#
A main role in HTP is played by numerical simulations, for which currently a number of software packages are available in hyperthermia. Treatment planning techniques: The workflow of an HTP assisted treatment generally consists of patient imaging, tissue segmentation, model generation, electromagnetic (EM) and thermal calculations, optimisation, and clinical implementation. PURPOSE: This manuscript provides an overview in the field of hyperthermia treatment planning (HTP) in cervical cancer. A prerelease of HyperPlan is now in clinical use in hyperthermia research Because the system is intended to be used in a clinical environment special emphasis was put on developing an ergonomic easy-to-use interface as well as on making the system robust and error-tolerant. For maximal performance the texture mapping capabilities of modern graphics workstations can be exploited in various ways. Designed in an object-oriented and modular manner, the system can be extended easily without recompilation. Our system, called HyperPlan, assists all these steps with state-of-the-art numerics, visualization, and 3D-interaction techniques (Stalling, Hege and H¨ ollerer 1995). The planning process as being performed in the Berlin hyperthermia research group involves several steps including segmentation and classification of tomographic images, generation of a patient-specific tetrahedral finite-element grid, computation of electromagnetic fields, resulting power and temperature distribution, as well as optimization of the antenna parameters. In this paper we discuss recent research activities in designing and implementing a software system for treatment planning in regional hyperthermia.
