Minimally-invasive thermal therapies capable of delivering large and varied doses of thermal energy to the body via small catheter based tools offer significant potential to reduce surgical trauma, recovery time, and associated healthcare costs. An inability to effectively monitor the damage fronts created by these techniques, however, has limited their practical application in many arenas. Many investigators have now reported the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to non-invasively measure temperatures during thermal therapeutic procedures. In phase I, we proposed that MRI could provide temperature information with sufficient temporal, spatial, and thermal resolution to allow for closed-loop feedback control of production of laser-induced thermal therapy lesions. To this end, we designed and constructed a system which utilized near real-time MR images to generate thermal data and to use this data for control of laser lesion production. We subsequently tested the system in both in vitro and in vivo samples with excellent results. In this proposal, we plan to continue development of this laser computer system and to focus it toward two applications for which it is particularly well suited: laser treatment of localized prostate cancer and production of intercranial laser lesions. The end result will be a laser computer system which can be interfaced to a clinical MR scanner during laser surgery and used interactively to guide and control thermal therapy.

Proposed Commercial Applications

The direct result of this research will be a commercially viable prototype of a laser computer system which when interfaced to an existing clinical MR scanner, will form a closed-loop feedback controlled thermal therapy system. With some 5000 clinical MR scanners in the US alone, the potential market for such a system should be quite large. In addition, it is likely that medical laser manufacturers as well as makers of other thermal therapies, will incorporate portions of the laser computer into their own platforms in order to make them MR-ready. We have focused initial development of the device toward minimally Invasive treatment of localized prostate cancer where associated health care costs are expected to reach up to $4 billion in 2000.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Small Business Innovation Research Grants (SBIR) - Phase II (R44)
Project #
5R44CA079282-03
Application #
6376916
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-7 (85))
Program Officer
Wong, Rosemary S
Project Start
1998-08-18
Project End
2004-02-29
Budget Start
2001-09-01
Budget End
2004-02-29
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2001
Total Cost
$390,733
Indirect Cost
Name
Biotex, Inc.
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Houston
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
77054
Maier, Florian; Fuentes, David; Weinberg, Jeffrey S et al. (2015) Robust phase unwrapping for MR temperature imaging using a magnitude-sorted list, multi-clustering algorithm. Magn Reson Med 73:1662-8
Fahrenholtz, Samuel J; Moon, Tim Y; Franco, Michael et al. (2015) A model evaluation study for treatment planning of laser-induced thermal therapy. Int J Hyperthermia 31:705-14
Fahrenholtz, Samuel J; Stafford, R Jason; Maier, Florian et al. (2013) Generalised polynomial chaos-based uncertainty quantification for planning MRgLITT procedures. Int J Hyperthermia 29:324-35
Fuentes, D; Yung, J; Hazle, J D et al. (2012) Kalman filtered MR temperature imaging for laser induced thermal therapies. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 31:984-94
Fuentes, D; Walker, C; Elliott, A et al. (2011) Magnetic resonance temperature imaging validation of a bioheat transfer model for laser-induced thermal therapy. Int J Hyperthermia 27:453-64
Yung, Joshua P; Shetty, Anil; Elliott, Andrew et al. (2010) Quantitative comparison of thermal dose models in normal canine brain. Med Phys 37:5313-21
Carpentier, Alexandre; McNichols, Roger J; Stafford, R Jason et al. (2008) Real-time magnetic resonance-guided laser thermal therapy for focal metastatic brain tumors. Neurosurgery 63:ONS21-8;discussion ONS28-9
McNichols, Roger J; Gowda, Ashok; Kangasniemi, Marko et al. (2004) MR thermometry-based feedback control of laser interstitial thermal therapy at 980 nm. Lasers Surg Med 34:48-55
McNichols, R J; Kangasniemi, M; Gowda, A et al. (2004) Technical developments for cerebral thermal treatment: water-cooled diffusing laser fibre tips and temperature-sensitive MRI using intersecting image planes. Int J Hyperthermia 20:45-56
Kangasniemi, Marko; Stafford, R Jason; Price, Roger E et al. (2003) Dynamic gadolinium uptake in thermally treated canine brain tissue and experimental cerebral tumors. Invest Radiol 38:102-7