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Temperature distributions in tumor models heated by self‐regulating nickel–copper alloy thermoseeds
Author(s) -
Brezovich Ivan A.,
Atkinson William J.,
Chakraborty Dev P.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.595490
Subject(s) - copper , nickel , homogeneity (statistics) , alloy , materials science , metallurgy , biomedical engineering , medicine , mathematics , statistics
Needle‐shaped thermoseeds have been manufactured from an alloy consisting of 70.4% nickel and 29.6% copper. The magnetic properties of the alloy were measured at various temperatures and from this the heating power produced by a thermoseed exposed to an electromagnetic induction field was computed as a function of the seed temperature. Calorimetric measurements were also performed. From these data, temperature distributions in simple tumor models assumed to be heated by an array of nickel–copper implants were computed. It was found that the nickel–copper implants produce substantially better temperature homogeneity than readily available constant power seeds, especially in tumors with unpredictable rates of blood perfusion or when the implant arrangement is not perfectly regular. Since such conditions are likely to be present in actual patients, the nickel–copper implants should be very useful in clinical hyperthermia.