Breast cancer is usually treated with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Fever-range hyperthermia treatments (HT) enhance the effect of radiotherapy and chemotherapy in terms of local tumor control and survival rates. Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is commonly used, however there is an increasing interest for using ultrasound (US) due to the larger penetration depth and better focusing capabilities. An adequate applicator for fever-range HT treatment of tumors in the entire intact breast region is not yet available. This work describes the theoretical design and characterization of an ultrasound cylindrical phased-array applicator. The US applicator is used to compute heating profiles in breast tumors and the results are obtained. The objectives of this paper is to describe the system of imaging using ultrasound, to analyze the current therapies of breast cancer, to simulate the fetus phantom using field ii program and then apply this program to the breast cancer, and to evaluate the heat distribution in the breast using k-wave toolbox. |
