Publication Date:
2014-02-26
Description:
The paper surveys recent progress in a joint mathematical-medical project on cancer therapy planning. Within so-called regional hyperthermia the computational task is to tune a set of coupled radiofrequency antennas such that a carefully measured tumor is locally heated, but any outside hot spots are avoided. A mathematical model of the whole clinical system -- air, applicator with antennas, water bolus, individual patient body -- involves Maxwell's equations in inhomogeneous media and a parabolic bioheat transfer equation, which represents a simplified model of heat transfer in the human body (ignoring strong blood vessel heat transport). Both PDEs need to be computed fast and to medical reliability (!) on a workstation within a clinical environment. This requirement triggered a series of new algorithmic developments to be reported here, among which is an adaptive multilevel FEM for Maxwell's equations, which dominates the numerical simulation time. In total, however, the main bulk of computation time (see Table 3 in Section 4 below) still goes into segmentation -- a necessary preprocessing step in the construction a 3D virtual patient from the input of a stack of 2D computed tomograms (left out here).
Keywords:
ddc:000
Language:
English
Type:
reportzib
,
doc-type:preprint
Format:
application/postscript
Format:
application/pdf
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