Ultrasound-enabled SIMO Channel for Targeted Brain Cancer Chemotherapy

Treating brain diseases with therapeutic particles imposes significant challenges as particles are usually too large to traverse the gaps between endothelial cells in the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Focused ultrasound (FUS) for disruption of the BBB has been proposed as a remedy. However, the extent of disruption and the efficiency of the particle delivery to the regions of interest are highly dependent on FUS sonication parameters. This study investigates the effects of not only FUS sonication parameters but also the therapeutic particle admin-istration scheme by exploiting communication-theoretic channel modeling. Specifically, the particle pathways from blood vessels to hallmarked spots in the brain interstitial space are abstracted as a single-input-multiple-output (SIMO) channel. The channel outputs are then examined through the lenses of communication-theoretic measures such as channel gain, transmission efficiency, signal-to-noise ratio, and bit error ratio. The numerical results are displayed utilizing the available clinical data on six patients with brain cancer. The results show that the proposed approach could be exploited in future studies to maximize the efficacy of the treatment and minimize adverse effects.