Improved liver cancer hyperthermia treatment and optimized microwave antenna power with magnetic nanoparticles

One of the most effective parameters in the thermal treatment of liver cancer by microwave heating method is the changes in the input power to the antenna. This study aims to numerically investigate the effects of the change in the input power to the microwave antenna in the presence of magnetic nanoparticles using the finite element method in liver tumors. Also, the importance of the type of nanoparticles, treatment time and side effects were investigated. According to the results, after the injection of maghemite nanoparticles, the purification time is 7.35 s at a power of 10 W and reaches 6.1 s when the power is increased to 100 W. Also, the ratio of the destroyed healthy volume of the tissue to the tumor volume is less than 20% in the mentioned powers, and the treatment can be considered independent of the power. After the injection of magnetite and FccFePt nanoparticles at a power of 10 W, the treatment time was calculated as 176 s and 295 s, respectively, and with the increase of the input power, the reduction of the treatment time was observed. So that the treatment time was reduced to 58 s and 74 s, respectively, at 100 W. In terms of side effects, for the mentioned nanoparticles, 4.89 and 8.93 times the volume of the tumor with a power of 10 W and when the power reaches 100 W, 4.05 and 5.6 times the volume of the tumor is destroyed from the healthy tissue, respectively. However, the lowest amount of healthy tissue destruction in these two nanofluids occurs at moderate powers—60 W and 50 W, respectively—so the dependence of treatment time and side effects on input power was observed.