Effect of phase modulation on the temperature distribution of a microwave hyperthermia antenna array in vivo

Abstract

Perfused, canine skeletal muscle and the brain tumour of a cancer patient were heated with an array of four parallel, interstitial antennas placed on the corners of a 2-cm square and driven at 915 MHz. The temperature distributions along the axial and diagonal catheters were measured with equal-phase driving of the antennas and with several time-varying schemes of driving phase differences among the antennas. When equal-phase driving was replaced by a rotating scheme of 90° driving phase differences, the tissue area in the junction plane heated above a normalized index temperature of 0·6 increased by a factor of about 1·25. With a rotating phase of 135°, the same area increased by a factor of about 1·6. The axial temperature distribution was not affected significantly by driving phase.

Key Words:

• Interstitial
• microwave
• phase
• in vivo