Microwave thermal imaging of scanned focused ultrasound heating: Animal experiments

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) uses focused ultrasound beams to ablate localized tumors noninvasively. Multiple clinical trials using HIFU treatment of liver, kidney, breast, pancreas and brain tumors have been conducted, while monitoring the temperature distribution with various imaging modalities such as MRI, CT and ultrasound. HIFU has achieved only minimal acceptance partially due to insufficient guidance from the limited temperature monitoring capability and availability. MR proton resonance frequency (PRF) shift thermometry is currently the most effective monitoring method; however, it is insensitive in temperature changes in fat, susceptible to motion artifacts, and is high cost. Exploiting the relationship between dielectric properties (i.e. permittivity and conductivity) and tissue temperature, in vivo dielectric property distributions of tissue during heating were reconstructed with our microwave tomographic imaging technology. Previous phantom studies have demonstrated sub-Celsius temperature accuracy and sub-centimeter spatial resolution in microwave thermal imaging. In this paper, initial animal experiments have been conducted to further investigate its potential. In vivo conductivity changes inside the piglet's liver due to focused ultrasound heating were observed in the microwave images with good correlation between conductivity changes and temperature.