Fast adaptive temperature-based re-optimization strategies for on-line hot spot suppression during locoregional hyperthermia

Background: Experience-based adjustments in phase-amplitude settings are applied to suppress treatment limiting hot spots that occur during locoregional hyperthermia for pelvic tumors. Treatment planning could help to further optimize treatments. The aim of this research was to develop temperature-based re-optimization strategies and compare the predicted effectiveness with clinically applied protocol/experience-based steering. Methods: This study evaluated 22 hot spot suppressions in 16 cervical cancer patients (mean age 67 _ 13 year). As a first step, all potential hot spot locations were represented by a spherical region, with a user-specified diameter. For fast and robust calculations, the hot spot temperature was represented by a user-specified percentage of the voxels with the largest heating potential (HPP). Re-optimization maximized tumor T90, with constraints to suppress the hot spot and avoid any significant increase in other regions. Potential hot spot region diameter and HPP were varied and objective functions with and without penalty terms to prevent and minimize temperature increase at other potential hot spot locations were evaluated. Predicted effectiveness was compared with clinically applied steering results. Results: All strategies showed effective hot spot suppression, without affecting tumor temperatures, similar to clinical steering. To avoid the risk of inducing new hot spots, HPP should not exceed 10%. Adding a penalty term to the objective function to minimize the temperature increase at other potential hot spot locations was most effective. Re-optimization times were typically ~10 s. Conclusion: Fast on-line re-optimization to suppress treatment limiting hot spots seems feasible to match effectiveness of ~30 years clinical experience and will be further evaluated in a clinical setting