Laser Interstitial Thermo Therapy (LITT) for Prostate Cancer Animal Model: Numerical Simulation of Temperature and Damage Distribution

M.F. Marqa, P. Colin, P. Nevoux, S. Mordon, and N. Betrouni
University of Lille, CHRU, Lille, France
Published in 2010

Laser interstitial thermotherapy (LITT) is a cancer treatment technique in which laser fibers are introduced inside the tumor. While it destroys deep tumors, the LITT procedure allows minimizing the impact on adjacent healthy structures. One of the effective methods to perform treatment planning for LITT is simulation. We used COMSOL Multiphysics to simulate the heat distribution and thermal damage resulting from laser interstitial of a plastic optical fiber (POF) in a biological medium. Also, COMSOL materials library was used to define the plastic optical fiber. Results presented from COMSOL Multiphysics were compared with results from ex-vivo experiments.