Design and testing of water-filled bolus structure to improve heating uniformity in rf hyperthermia system for cancer treatment

Thermal therapy, thermotherapy or Hyperthermia are names of cancer treatment using heat. Researchers have found that high temperatures are able to destroy cancer cells using Radio Frequency (RF) radiation focused on malignant tumors. In addition, as the cancer cells try to recover themselves or reproduce, they die, and cancer tumor shrinks. In comparison, regular or normal cells recover or reproduce without any long-term damage. Hyperthermia therapy uses different tools to destroy cancerous cells such as Radio Frequency (RF) heating. One of the main challenges in hyperthermia treatment is the ability to obtain uniform heating across the tumor volume. This project will focus on one method to obtain uniform heating using a device called the water bolus, which is a hemispherical surface filled with water. This bolus is attached to the RF applicator and distributes the RF energy equally across the tumor volume. Experimental studies have been performed in this project to test the efficacy of the bolus structure. The testing will be done on synthetic foam material, with and without bolus to evaluate the heating efficiency and heating time to a temperature of ~ 42 degrees C. The results show that the bolus structure achieves its desired purpose of uniform heating over a period of 5-30 minutes.