Verification of a hyperthermia model method using MR thermometry.

Simulation of hyperthermia induced power and temperature distributions is becoming generally accepted and finding its way into clinical hyperthermia treatments. Such simulations provide a means for understanding the complete three-dimensional temperature distribution. However, the results of the simulation studies should be regarded with caution since modelling errors will result in differences between the actual and simulated temperature distribution. This study uses a diffusion weighted magnetic resonance (MR) based technique to measure hyperthermia induced temperature distributions in a three-dimensional space in a non-perfused phantom. The measured data are used to verify the accuracy of numerical simulations of the same three-dimensional temperature distributions. The simulation algorithm is a finite element based method that first computes the electromagnetic induced power deposition then the temperature distribution. Two non-perfused phantom studies were performed and qualitatively the MR and simulated distributions agreed for steady-state. However, due to the long MR sampling time (approximately 4 min), poor agreement between the simulations and MR measurements were obtained for thermal transients. Good agreement between the simulations and fibreoptic thermometry measurements were obtained. The fiberoptic measurements differed from the simulations by 0.11 +/- 0.59 degrees C and -0.17 +/- 0.29 degrees C (mean +/- standard deviation for the two studies).