Estimación de parámetros en la terapia por ultrasonido de alta intensidad para el tratamiento de cáncer

Abstract

Hyperthermia using High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is an acoustic therapy used in clinical applications to destroy malignant tumors of bone, breast, brain, kidney, pancreas, prostate, rectum and testicle. This technique consists in reducing the temperature in the tumor or in the specific area, to achieve coagulative necrosis and immediate cell death. Although hyperthermia can cure cancer, it can also cause side effects and even damage healthy cells or tissues. Therefore, for having a successful treatment, it is important to monitor and observe what is the tissue behavior, as well as its changes, before, during and after the procedure Mathematical models are tools that can be useful to simulate an adequate therapy by differentiating characteristics that will depend on each individual. In this work, an estimation of parameters for a direct model with rectangular two-dimensional domain is presented, the estimation was made with numerical data and simulated experimental data, both apply the same model, but the experimental data with the largest number of mesh elements and a random additive measurement error. These results demonstrate that by identifying the appropriate parameters of each patient, it is possible to predict the thermal responses of the tissue to be treated and, based on them, to plan an adequate cancer treatment by inducing heat by HIFU.