Sensitivity Study in High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Therapy for Cancer

Hyperthermia using High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is an acoustic therapy used in clinical applications to destroy malignant tumors of bone, breast, brain, kidney, pancreas, prostate, rectum and testis. This technique consists in raising the temperature in the tumor or specific zone, to achieve coagulative necrosis and immediate cell death. For having a successful treatment, it is important to monitor and observe what is the tissue behavior, as well as its changes, before, during and after the procedure. In this paper, a sensitivity study is presented to determine the suitable parameters that may be estimated using mathematical modeling, thereby simulating an optimal treatment of cancer by heating induced by High Intensity Focused Ultrasound. The sensitivity analysis indicates the conditions under which temperature profiles are sensitive to changes in thermal conductivity and attenuation coefficient. This information provides the basis for estimation of the parameters in different tissues and for prediction of the thermal responses of these tissues.