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Numerical investigation of nanoparticle-assisted laser-induced interstitial thermotherapy toward tumor and cancer treatments

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Abstract

In this work, we numerically investigated nanoparticle-assisted laser-induced interstitial thermotherapy for tumor/cancer treatments. The goal of the study was to investigate the therapeutic effects of treatment conditions including laser wavelength, power, exposure time, concentrations of tailored nanoparticles, and optical/thermal properties of the tissue that is under treatment. It was found that using absorbing preferential nanoparticles as the photothermal agent weakens fluence rate distributions in terms of lowering fluence rate peaks and reducing laser penetration depths. However, the local enhancement in laser photon absorption induced by nanoparticles is so significant that the reduced fluence rate will be balanced out, and the eventual medical hyperthermia is greatly prompted by using nanoparticles. Also, the results of numerical simulations indicated that with constant laser illumination, an increase in nanoparticle concentration beyond a certain range has only an insignificant impact on hyperthermia.

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Abbreviations

C abs :

Absorption cross section

C sca :

Scattering cross section

c :

Specific heat of tissue

g :

Anisotropy factor

h :

Convection coefficient

i :

Index of discrete ordinate direction

i′:

Index of discrete ordinate direction

k :

Coefficient of heat conductivity

k a :

Overall absorption coefficient

k np :

Absorption coefficient of nanoparticles

k t :

Absorption coefficient of the tissue

L c :

Remnant of collimation irradiance

L d :

Diffusion radiant intensity

N :

Number of discrete ordinate directions

n :

Surface normal vector

Q abs :

Absorption efficiency

Q s :

Bio-heat energy generated from photon energy

Q sca :

Scattering efficiency

Q 0 :

Total laser photon flux

R d :

Reflectivity of tissue

r :

Radial distance

r :

Radial distance vector

S c :

Source term induced by collimation

s :

Direction vector

s′:

Direction vector

s c :

Direction of collimated light

T :

Tissue temperature

\( {T_\infty } \) :

environment temperature

w,w′:

Quadrature weights

z :

Axial distance

α :

Term coefficient

δ :

Mean-free path of laser penetration

μ, η, ξ:

Directional cosines

v B :

Blood perfusion rate

ρ :

Density of tissue

θ :

Polar angle

ψ :

Azimuthal angle

Φ:

Phase function

σs :

Scattering coefficient

Ψ:

Fluence rate

ω,ω′:

Solid angle

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Acknowledgements

This work was made possible in part through support from the John and Ann Doerr Fund for Computational Biomedicine.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering & Material Science, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005-1892, USA

    Xiao Xu, Andrew Meade & Yildiz Bayazitoglu

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering & Material Science, Rice University, Ms 321, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX, 77251-1892, USA

    Yildiz Bayazitoglu

Authors
  1. Xiao Xu
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  2. Andrew Meade
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  3. Yildiz Bayazitoglu
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Correspondence to Yildiz Bayazitoglu.

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Xu, X., Meade, A. & Bayazitoglu, Y. Numerical investigation of nanoparticle-assisted laser-induced interstitial thermotherapy toward tumor and cancer treatments. Lasers Med Sci 26, 213–222 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-010-0828-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-010-0828-3

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