Estimación de parámetros en la terapia de hipertermia por radiofrecuencia para el tratamiento del cáncer

Abstract

Radiofrequency (RF) hyperthermia is a therapy that takes advantage of the penetration qualities of electromagnetic waves to induce heating in tissues; this therapy is combined with radiotherapy for cancer treatment and chemotherapy that increases to effectiveness of treatment. The mechanism of action of this therapy is the increase of temperature in the tumor, in order to achieve apoptosis of the cell that has an excessive growth and thus generate immediate cell death. This treatment, despite demonstrating its effectiveness, has many limitations such as the low penetrability of the wave, which suggests that the treatments are usually for superficial or shallow tumor tissues. In addition, the concentration of heating at a specific point is another major problem, since when it is induced it is not limited only to tumor tissue, but it affects healthy tissues and to this is added the fact that not all patients present with same physical characteristics in the tissues, which makes the therapy different in the treatment implementation. This paper deals with the estimates of the parameters in radiofrequency hyperthermia therapy, with simulated experimental data and numerical solution of the system, by means of the Gauss-Newton and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithms, to specify the treatment depending of patient. The results indicate that it is possible to estimate a parameter, obtaining excellent results with the LM optimization algorithm that allow to make a planning for therapy in a specified patient and least possible damage to normal and healthy tissue.