Analysis of Heating Characteristics of Rectangular Resonant Cavity Applicator for Deep Heating of Abdominal Tumors

In recent years, hyperthermia, which is considered a minimally invasive treatment method, has attracted attention. Hyperthermia is a treatment based on the clinical fact that cancerous tissues are less tolerant to heat than normal tissues. Heating cancerous tissue to approximately 42°C for a period of time kills only the cancerous tissue while normal tissue survives. In our previous study, a cylindrical cavity resonator was proposed for hyperthermia treatment of abdominal tumors. However, the proposed applicator required a large area of the human body to be placed inside the applicator, and there was a possibility that unintended parts of the body might be heated. Therefore, in this study, the shape of the applicator was changed from cylindrical to rectangular and redesigned to minimize the area of the human body to be placed inside the applicator. In this study, the heating characteristics of the proposed rectangular applicator were numerically investigated by performing an electromagnetic field analysis using two different resonance patterns.