Control of heating pattern for interstitial microwave hyperthermia by a coaxial-dipole antenna-aiming at treatment of brain tumor

Interstitial microwave hyperthermia is one of tile modalities for cancer treatment that inserta thin microwave a into tile affected part to selectively heat only the antenna, tumor The authors are investigating thiS technique with an aim of clinical applications of this medical treatment for brain tumors. In the clinical treatment of brain tumors, it is more critical that "only tumor parts be heated" than for the treatment of Other tissues. Therefore, ill antenna that can generate a localized heating pattern on the tumor is required. Although the heating pattern can be controlled here ill he longitudinal direction of the antenna by using Multiple antennas to form in array applicator, control of the heating pattern in the axial direction is relatively diffficult. In this paper, to enable the heating pattern to be controllcd ill the axial direction, tile authors introduced a coaxial-dipole antenna and improved its Structure. In addition, they assumed that it was actually applied in the medical treatment of brain tumors and used a numerical calculation model that included a tumor created frorn MR iniages to verify the effcctiveness of the improved coaxial-dipole antenna according to numerical calculations. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals. Inc.