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Patient-specific simulation of high-intensity focused ultrasound for head and neck cancer ablation

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Abstract

This study used acoustic and biothermal simulations on reconstructed geometry of a patient with squamous cell carcinoma to investigate the feasibility of using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the thermal ablation of cancerous tumors in the oral cavity. Herein, the effect of HIFU treatment on a patient diagnosed with head and neck cancer was investigated using a commercialized finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) tool. The potential application of spherical and cylindrical transducer geometries with curvature radii ranging from 64 to 100 mm was investigated. The effect of frequency variation (from 0.2 to 1.5 MHz) on the thermal ablation characteristics of a spherical transducer was explored. The study also explored the influence of surrounding tissue structures on transducer motion by placing transducers in different positions. The spherical transducers were found to have focused acoustic energy deposition and their deposited acoustic energy was revealed to increase with frequency. Consequently, a higher ablation volume was realized due to the longer exposure time for the lower frequencies. Interference from bone structures can cause focal shifts or distortions in the deposited acoustic energy. However, no significant secondary hotspot regions were observed. Therefore, the investigated technique has the potential to be used for the successful non-invasive treatment of similar head and neck cancers.

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Abbreviations

ã :

Factor representing the absorption behavior

c :

Speed of sound (m·s−1)

c b :

Specific heat capacity of blood (J·kg−1K−1)

c T :

Specific heat capacity of the biological tissue (J·kg−1K−1)

dP/dV :

Acoustic power density (MW·m−3)

k :

Thermal conductivity of the biological tissue (W·m−1K−1)

p :

Pressure (N·m−2)

t :

Time (s)

t 0 :

Initial heating period (s)

t final :

Final heating period (s)

CEM43°C:

Thermal dose in cumulative quivalent minutes at 43 °C (min)

Q :

Specific metabolic heat transfer rate (W·kg−1)

R :

Temperature dependence of the cell death rate

S :

Source term representing the heat generated by the absorption of acoustic energy (W·kg−1)

T :

Temperature (K)

W b :

Blood perfusion rate (kg·m−3s−1)

α :

Absorption coefficient (Np·m−1)

ρ :

Density of the medium (kg·m−3)

ω :

Angular frequency (rad·s−1)

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF) (NRF-2022R1A4A5018891; NRF-2021R1F1A1048714) funded by the Ministry of Science & ICT and the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) (1415177965/20011377; 1415178801/20014904) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, Republic of Korea. We thank ZMT for providing a free license of Sim4Life used in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Kookmin University, Seoul, 02707, Korea

    Abdul Mohizin & Jung Kyung Kim

  2. Department of Radiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, 75390-8542, USA

    Bibin Prasad

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, SMG-Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, 07061, Korea

    Suzy Kim

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  1. Abdul Mohizin
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Correspondence to Suzy Kim or Jung Kyung Kim.

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Abdul Mohizin is a postdoctoral researcher in School of Mechanical Engineering, Kookmin Univeristy, Seoul. He received his B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Kerala University, Kerala, India, in 2013 and 2016, respectively, and Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kookmin University in 2021. His current research interests include computational fluid dynamics, two phase flows, tissue fluid interactions, needle-free injection systems and biomedical devices.

Bibin Prasad received his B.E. and M.Tech. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Anna University Chennai, India, in 2009 and University of Kerala, India in 2011, respectively. He then received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kookmin University, Seoul, Republic of Korea in February 2018. From March 2018 to February 2019, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Radiation Oncology, SMG-Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Currently he is a senior postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Radiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA. His research is focused on the interaction of electromagnetic fields with the human body for the treatment of cancer and metal implant infections.

Suzy Kim received a bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Seoul National University College of Medicine. She trained as a Resident in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Seoul National University Hospital in 1999–2003. She worked at the St. Vincent’s Hospital The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine from 2004–2011. She has been working as the Director and Clinical Professor of Radiation Oncology since the Department of Radiation Oncology was first established at Seoul Metropoitan Government-Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center in 2011.

Jung Kyung Kim received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1996 and then his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees both in Biomedical Engineering at Seoul National University in 1998 and 2003, respectively. From July 2004 to August 2006, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Departments of Medicine and Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, USA. After joining Kookmin University based in Seoul, South Korea in September 2006 as an Assistant Professor, he has been directing Biomedical Device Lab and currently serves as a Tenured Professor in School of Mechanical Engineering.

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Mohizin, A., Prasad, B., Kim, S. et al. Patient-specific simulation of high-intensity focused ultrasound for head and neck cancer ablation. J Mech Sci Technol 37, 2119–2130 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-023-0347-3

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