Development of Elemental Technologies for Magnetic Hyperthermia in Cancer Treatment

Abstract

AbstractHyperthermia utilizing magnetic particles has been widely studied as a possible method for cancer treatment in recent years. This method induces apoptosis (cell death) using heat generation from magnetic particles which are injected into a tumor region and subjected to an external high-frequency magnetic field. In previous studies, we succeeded in developing microsize thermosensitive ferromagnetic particles with a low Curie temperature of around 40–45 °C as a self-controlled heating element that possibly prevents the local overheating surrounding healthy tissues. Further, by utilizing the change of its permeability around its Curie temperature resulting in the change in the magnetic flux density around tumor region, we also developed a wireless temperature measurement. In addition, to localize magnetic particles which cannot be seen from the body surface, we also developed an automatic localization system by using a robot arm equipped with three detection coils symmetrically installed in heating coil. To make our proposed elemental technologies feasible in clinical settings, we have also been developing a magnetic hyperthermia system that can treat deep-seated tumors up to 5 cm. In this paper, we report our elemental technologies which have been developed so far such as heating elements, temperature and position monitoring technologies.KeywordsHyperthermiaMagnetic particlesPosition and temperature detection