Hyperthermia is being used in many medical fields.
Synergo uses a unique combination of local microwave energy hyperthermia (heating) with simultaneous
instillation of cooled chemotherapeutic drug. The target of hyperthermia is to
reach effective temperature inside the tissue to enable higher drug penetration and
accelerated drug-DNA reactions.
Tissue heating should be adjusted per patient and dynamically maintained during treatment
while the tissue temperature is constantly measured and closely followed.
Conduction is governed by the Boltzmann equation: Heat conduction is proportional to
a constant K which cannot be changed: (for example: Kfat=0.2, Kmuscle=0.38, Ksilver=420)
Since the bladder wall acts as a good thermal insulator, heat penetration through a heated liquid
is not efficient (conduction/convection heating).
On the other hand, during microwave heating the energy is absorbed directly deep in the tissue
to enable efficient homogenous heating, real-time measurement and follow-up on the tissue
temperature and dynamic adjustment of the transmitted energy for each per
patient over time (e.g. when blood flow in tissue is increased due to heating).*
Warm liquid does not allow any simple adjustments in order to tailor heating per patient
over time (e.g. different patients have different blood circulation,
different tissues, dynamic changes that occur over time such as vasodilation etc.) Moving from hot liquid to microwave radiation in the Synergo systems was based on previous experience,
as well as on articles already published by other researchers.
*These had been submitted to and recently approved by the FDA.
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