Micro-Coaxial Slot Antenna to Treat Bone Tumors by Thermal Ablation: Theoretical and Experimental Evaluation
Keywords:
blood perfusion, bone tumors, finite element models, microwave thermal ablation, slot antenna.Abstract
According to the American Cancer Society the number of patients with bone tumors is growing up. The extremities of the long bones are the most affected by this disease. The common treatments are surgery (amputation), radio and chemotherapy. However, their high cost and side-effects show the necessity of new treatments. These should not only eradicate the tumor but also offer a major control over the treated area. In this sense, the microwave ablation plays an important role. A micro-coaxial slot antenna to generated thermal ablation in bone tumors is proposed. The antenna was modeled, constructed and evaluated in pig tissue. A parametric study to evaluate the effect of the blood perfusion in the thermal distributions was done. Values of bone blood perfusion among 30-1171 ml/min/kg were included in this study. Subsequently, temperature profiles and thermal distributions generated in pig bones were obtained and compared with those obtained in the model. This evaluation shows a high level of concordance; in the best cases, a difference between simulation and measurement of 0.13°C-3.83°C and 0.08°C-0.41°C was found. This study corroborates the efficiency of the models to predict the antenna behavior and the efficiency of the proposed antenna to generated thermal ablation in bone tissue.