Design and construction of resonant cavity applicator for brain tumor hyperthermia treatment without contact.

A re-entrant type resonant cavity applicator for brain tumor hyperthermia treatment is presented. In this method, a human brain is placed between the gap of the inner re-entrant cylinders without contact. This cavity has a window for insertion of the human head. Here, first, to design and construct a resonant cavity applicator, the results of the temperature distribution inside an agar phantom and electromagnetic field leaked from the attached window to the environment by the computer simulation were presented. Second, The developed resonant cavity and inner electrode, which were made of an aluminum alloy, were presented. Third, the experimental heating result of the agar phantom was presented. In the experiment, the center region of the agar phantom is heated to 42 degrees C. The leaked electric field strength at the position of 10 cm away from the center of the window was less than that of 10% of the center of the agar phantom. It was found that the developed resonant cavity applicator was applicable to both deep and regional brain hyperthermia treatment.