Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Probing deep tissues with laser-induced thermotherapy using near-infrared light

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Lasers in Medical Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Optically tunable gold nanoparticles have been widely used in research with near-infrared light as a means to enhance laser-induced thermal therapy since it capitalizes on nanoparticles’ plasmonic heating properties. There have been several studies published on numerical models replicating this therapy in such conditions. However, there are several limitations on some of the models which can render the model unfaithful to therapy simulations. In this paper, two techniques of simulating laser-induced thermal therapy with a high-absorbing localized region of interest inside a phantom are compared. To validate these models, we conducted an experiment of an agar-agar phantom with an inclusion reproducing it with both models. The phantom was optically characterized by absorption and total attenuation. The first model is based on the macroperspective solution of the radiative transfer equation given by the diffusion equation, which is then coupled with the Pennes bioheat equation to obtain the temperature. The second is a Monte Carlo model that considers a stochastic solution of the same equation and is also considered as input to the Pennes bioheat transfer equation which is then computed. The Monte Carlo is in good agreement with the experimental data having an average percentage difference of 4.5% and a correlation factor of 0.98, while the diffusion method comparison with experimental data is 61% and 0.95 respectively. The optical characterization of the phantom and its inclusion were also validated indirectly since the Monte Carlo, which used those parameters, was also validated. While knowing the temperature in all points inside a body during photothermal therapy is important, one has to be mindful of the model which fits the conditions and properties. There are several reasons to justify the discrepancy of the diffusion method: low-scattering conditions, absorption, and reduced scattering are comparable. The error bars that are normally associated when characterizing an optical phantom can justify also a part of that uncertainty. For low-size tumors in depth, one may have to increase the light dosage in photothermal therapies to have a more effective treatment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Alda J (2003) Laser and Gaussian beam propagation and transformation. Encycloped Opt Eng 2013:999–1013. https://doi.org/10.1081/E-EOE120009751

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Arridge SR (1999) Optical tomography in medical imaging. Inverse Problems 15(2):R41. https://doi.org/10.1088/0266-5611/15/2/022

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Brunetaud JM, Mordon S, Maunoury V, Beacco C (1995) Non-PDT uses of lasers in oncology. Lasers Med Sci 10(1):3–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02133156

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cain CP, Welch AJ (1974) Thin-film temperature sensors for biological measurements. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng BME-21(5):421–423. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBME.1974.324415

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Cheong SSK, Krishnan S, Cho SH (2008) Modeling of plasmonic heating from individual gold nanoshells for near-infrared laser-induced thermal therapy. Med Phys 36(6):4664–4671. https://doi.org/10.1118/1.2961677

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Elliott AM, Stafford RJ, Schwartz J, Wang J, Shetty AM, Bourgoyne C, O’Neal P, Hazle JD (2007) Laser-induced thermal response and characterization of nanoparticles for cancer treatment using magnetic resonance thermal imaging. Med Phys 34(7):3102–3108. https://doi.org/10.1118/1.2733801

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Fang Q (2010) Mesh-based Monte Carlo method using fast ray-tracing in Plucker coordinates. Biomed Opt Express 1(1):165–175. https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.1.000165

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Fang Q, Boas D (2009) Monte Carlo simulation of photon migration in 3D turbid media accelerated by graphics processing units. Opt Express 17(22):20178–20190. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.17.020178

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Fang Q, Boas DA (2009) Tetrahedral mesh generation from volumetric binary and grayscale images. In: Proceedings - 2009 IEEE international symposium on biomedical imaging: from nano to macro. ISBI 2009, pp 1142–1145. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISBI.2009.5193259

  10. Geuzaine C, Remacle JF (2009) Gmsh: a three-dimensional finite element mesh generator with built-in pre-and post-processing facilities. Int J Numer Methods Eng 79(11):0, 1309–1331. https://doi.org/10.1002/nme.2579

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Jacques SL (2013) Optical properties of biological tissues: a review. Phys Med Biol 58(11):R37. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/58/11/R37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Jaque D, Martínez Maestro L, del Rosal B, Haro-Gonzalez P, Benayas A, Plaza JL, Martín Rodri̇guez E, García Solė J (2014) Nanoparticles for photothermal therapies. Nanoscale 6(16):9494–9530. https://doi.org/10.1039/c4nr00708e

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Kim A, Wilson BC (2010) Measurement of ex vivo and in vivo tissue optical properties: methods and theories. In: Optical-thermal response of laser-irradiated tissue. Springer, Netherlands, pp 267–319, DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8831-48, (to appear in print)

  14. Marchesini R, Bertoni A, Andreola S, Melloni E, Sichirollo aE (1989) Extinction and absorption coefficients and scattering phase functions of human tissues in vitro. Appl Opt 28(12):2318–24. https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.28.002318. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20555518

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Niemz MH (1996) Laser-tissue interactions. Springer, Berlin. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-662-03193-3

    Book  Google Scholar 

  16. Organization WH (2013) Women’s health. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs334/en/

  17. Patterson MS, Wilson BC, Wyman DR (1991) The propagation of optical radiation in tissue. II: optical properties of tissues and resulting fluence distributions. Lasers Med Sci 6 (4):379–390. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02042460

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Pennes HH (1998) Analysis of tissue and arterial blood temperatures in the resting human forearm. 1948. J Appl Physiol (Bethesda Md. : 1985) 85:5–34. DOI 9714612

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Phadnis A, Kumar S, Srivastava A (2016) Numerical investigation of thermal response of laser-irradiated biological tissue phantoms embedded with gold nanoshells. J Therm Biol 61:16–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtherbio.2016.08.002

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Reynoso FJ, Lee Cd, Cheong Sk, Cho SH (2013) Implementation of a multisource model for gold nanoparticle-mediated plasmonic heating with near-infrared laser by the finite element method. Med Phys 40 (7):073301. https://doi.org/10.1118/1.4808361

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Sapareto SA, Dewey WC (1984) Thermal dose determination in cancer therapy. Int J Radiation Oncol Biol Phys 10(6):787–800. https://doi.org/10.1016/0360-3016(84)90379-1

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Schweiger M, Arridge S (2014) The Toast++ software suite for forward and inverse modeling in optical tomography. J Biomed Opt 19(4):040801. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JBO.19.4.040801

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Silva CO, Rijo P, Molpeceres J, Ascensȧo L, Roberto A, Fernandes AS, Gomes R, Pinto Coelho JM, Gabriel A, Vieira P, Reis CP (2016) Bioproduction of gold nanoparticles for photothermal therapy. Therapeutic Deliv 7(5):287–304. https://doi.org/10.4155/tde-2015-0011

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Vera J, Bayazitoglu Y (2009) A note on laser penetration in nanoshell deposited tissue. Int J Heat Mass Transf 52(13-14):3402–3406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2009.02.014

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Welch AJ, Van Gemert MJC (2011) Optical-thermal response of laser-irradiated tissue, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht

    Book  Google Scholar 

  26. West JL, Hirsch LR, Stafford RJ, Bankson JA, Sershen SR, Rivera B, Price RE, Hazle JD, Halas NJ, West JL (2003) Nanoshell-mediated near-infrared thermal therapy of tumors under magnetic resonance guidance. Proc Natl Acad Sci 100(23):13549–13554. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2232479100

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Yao R, Intes X, Fang Q (2016) Generalized mesh-based Monte Carlo for wide-field illumination and detection via mesh retessellation. Biomed Opt Express 7(1):171. https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.7.000171

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This work was partially supported by national funding by the Portuguese FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through the projects PD/BD/105920/2014, UID/FIS/04559/2013(LIBPhys) and UID/BIO/00645/2019.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Monte da Caparica, Portugal

    Alexandre Lopes, José Paulo Santos & Pedro Vieira

  2. LIBPhys, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Monte da Caparica, Portugal

    Alexandre Lopes & José Paulo Santos

  3. Laboratório de Óptica, Lasers e Sistemas, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Ricardo Gomes, Marta Castiñeras & João M. P. Coelho

  4. Instituto de Biofísica e Engenharia Biomédica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Ricardo Gomes & João M. P. Coelho

Authors
  1. Alexandre Lopes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ricardo Gomes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Marta Castiñeras
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. João M. P. Coelho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. José Paulo Santos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Pedro Vieira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexandre Lopes.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lopes, A., Gomes, R., Castiñeras, M. et al. Probing deep tissues with laser-induced thermotherapy using near-infrared light. Lasers Med Sci 35, 43–49 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-019-02768-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-019-02768-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation