Technical Quality of Deep Hyperthermia Using the BSD-2000

textabstractThis thesis is including six previously published papers that briefly described here. In the first paper, homemade software RHyThM (Rotterdam Hyperthermia Thermal Modulator) was presented towards improvement of the accessibility of the PDOS-formatted hyperthermia (HT) data produced by the BSD-2000 system. Next, we compared our thermometry results with the data reported in other studies. The study concluded that there exists a clear need to arrive at a consensus on new and tight guidelines to allow a valid evaluation and comparison of the quality of HT treatments carried out in different institutes and among various clinical studies. In the third paper, it was found that intraluminal temperatures are highly correlated with those obtained intratumorally and that intratumor thermometry is not superior to intraluminal thermometry. The other part of the study shows at present discrimination between normal and tumor-contact/indicative tissue in intraluminal thermometry does not provide more accurate and relevant clinical information, so there is no need to do tissue type assignment. The next paper shows a dependence of temperature on the weight of the patient, and that the four configurations of the BSD-2000 amplifiers driving the Sigma-60 provided almost similar power outputs and were able to reproducibly generate moderate heating. Temperatures and heating pattern did not change significantly over the 15 years, while the experience of staff-members and treatment protocols had certainly improved. The last part of the project shows at the lower frequencies of 75-90 MHz the Sigma-60 and at 100 MHz the Sigma-Eye can safely replace the Sigma-60-Ellipse applicator