Thermal dose optimization for ultrasound tissue ablation.

A formal and general thermal dose optimisation method is developed and tested. Prior methods require brute force searches wherein the temperature and dose distributions must be computed at each iteration by solving the bioheat transfer equation (BHTE) numerically. This is extremely time-consuming and can only be used to compare a few prespecified strategies instead of obtaining a more general optimal result. With the method developed here, dose distribution can be calculated without solving the BHTE numerically. This can be done in a matter of a few minutes compared with many hours. Moreover, general thermal dose optimization can now be performed to find the optimal strength and location of each focus so that an optimal dose distribution is obtained while the specified constraint is satisfied. The algorithm developed here consists of a closed-form solution to the BHTE, a Gaussian model for parameterizing a temperature distribution created by a power deposition pattern, and a two-step optimization technique for obtaining the model parameters that optimize the thermal dose distribution. Several examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm and its robustness under different initial conditions and under assumptions of different sizes of the target region and different numbers of foci. The algorithm developed here provides an efficient and effective tool for treatment planning in ultrasound tissue ablation.