Keynote Talk: Electromagnetic-Based Hyperthermia Therapy for Treatment of Brain Cancer

Description: This keynote talk from the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston explores how Dr. Dario Rodrigues from the University of Maryland used the COMSOL Multiphysics^® software to develop two possible hyperthermia therapy (HT) treatments for brain cancer. Dr. Rodrigues begins the talk with an overview of HT and its most common treatment modalities. He then dives into the first method his team developed to target deep-seated brain tumors, consisting of a noninvasive applicator with a cylindrical shape that circles the patient's head. The applicator includes 72 microwave antennas that concentrate its energy at the tumor, thus increasing its temperature to therapeutic levels of 40-44°C. Dr. Rodrigues also covers the various physics phenomena that needed to be considered when modeling this approach, such as the specific absorption rate, temperature, and fluid flow, which were modeled with the RF Module, Heat Transfer Module, and CFD Module, respectively. In the second method, Dr. Rodrigues introduces a thermobrachytherapy balloon implant. This inflatable balloon is implanted into the patient's head to deliver HT and radiation therapy simultaneously. Dr. Rodrigues explains how he and his team used COMSOL Multiphysics^® to design a skull model suitable for 3D printing and conducting temperature-based experiments, including thermal imaging, which were used to validate his modeling approach. Dr. Rodrigues is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, as well as director of the Hyperthermia Therapy Practice School. He received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from a collaboration between the NOVA University of Lisbon (Portugal) and Duke University in 2013.