Ultrasound-assisted photothermal therapy and real-time treatment monitoring

Haemin Kim; Gyuwon Jo; Jin Ho Chang

doi:10.1364/BOE.9.004472

Ultrasound-assisted photothermal therapy and real-time treatment monitoring

Biomed Opt Express. 2018 Aug 27;9(9):4472-4480. doi: 10.1364/BOE.9.004472. eCollection 2018 Sep 1.

Authors

Haemin Kim¹, Gyuwon Jo², Jin Ho Chang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, 04107, South Korea.
² Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, 04107, South Korea.

Abstract

Photothermal therapy (PTT) has the capability for selective treatment, in which light delivered to the target is converted into heat and subsequently causes coagulative necrosis. However, optical scattering in biological media limits light penetration, thus reducing therapeutic efficacy. Here, we demonstrate that the temperatures generated by light and ultrasound energies can be added constructively in resected melanoma cancers, which causes an increase in treatment depth. This method is called dual thermal therapy (DTT). It is also shown that combined ultrasound and photoacoustic images acquired using the pulse sequence proposed in this paper can be used for real-time monitoring of DTT.

Keywords: (170.0170) Medical optics and biotechnology; (170.5120) Photoacoustic imaging; (170.5180) Photodynamic therapy; (170.7170) Ultrasound; (350.5340) Photothermal effects.