Towards personalized and versatile monitoring of temperature fields within heterogeneous tissues during laser therapies

Košir, Jure (author), Vella, Daniele (author), Lukač, Matjaž (author), Jezeršek, Matija (author)

Advancements in medical laser technology have paved the way for its widespread acceptance in a variety of treatments and procedures. Selectively targeting particular tissue structures with minimally invasive procedures limits the damage to surrounding tissue and allows for reduced post-procedural downtime. In many treatments that are hyperthermia-based, the efficiency depends on the achieved temperature within the targeted tissues. Current approaches for monitoring subdermal temperature distributions are either invasive, complex, or offer inadequate spatial resolution. Numerical studies are often therapy-tailored and source tissue parameters from the literature, lacking versatility and a tissue-specific approach. Here, we show a protocol that estimates the temperature distribution within the tissue based on a thermographic recording of its surface temperature evolution. It couples a time-dependent matching algorithm and thermal-diffusion-based model, while recognizing tissue-specific characteristics yielded by a fast calibration process. The protocol was employed during hyperthermic laser treatment performed ex-vivo on a heterogeneous porcine tissue, and in-vivo on a human subject. In both cases the calibrated thermal parameters correlate with the range of values reported by other studies. The matching algorithm sufficiently reproduced the temperature dynamics of heterogeneous tissue. The estimated temperature distributions within ex-vivo tissue were validated by simultaneous reference measurements, and the ones estimated in-vivo reveal a distribution trend that correlates well with similar studies. The presented method is versatile, supported by the protocol for tissue-specific tailoring, and can readily be implemented for temperature monitoring of various hyperthermia-based procedures by means of recording the surface temperature evolution with a miniature thermal camera implemented within a handheld laser scanner or similar.

• Language: English
• Keywords: temperature measurement, laser medical procedures, process monitoring
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: Str. 4530-4543
• Numbering: Vol. 12, no. 7, art. 428028
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-128832
• UDC: 535
• ISSN on article: 2156-7085
• DOI: 10.1364/BOE.428028
• COBISS.SI-ID: 72307459

Copyright

"© 2021 Optical Society of America. Users may use, reuse, and build upon the article, or use the article for text or data mining, so long as such uses are for non-commercial purposes and appropriate attribution is maintained. All other rights are reserved." (Datum opombe: 27. 3. 2023)

• Publication date in RUL: 05.08.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Biomedical optics express
• Shortened title: Biomed. opt. express
• Publisher: Optica
• ISSN: 2156-7085
• COBISS.SI-ID: 24857383

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: merjenje temperature, laserske terapije, nadzor procesa