Spatial Focusing of Magnetic Particle Hyperthermia

Magnetic particle hyperthermia is a promising cancer therapy, but a typical constraint of its applicability is to localize heat solely to malignant regions sparing healthy surrounding tissues. By simultaneous application of a constant magnetic field together with the hyperthermia inducing alternating magnetic field, heating focus may be confined in smaller regions in a tunable manner. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the focusing parameters, by adequate selection of magnetic nanoparticles and field conditions and explore spatially focused magnetic particle hyperthermia efficiency in tissue phantom systems comprising of agarose gel and magnetic nanoparticles. Our results suggest the possibility of spatially-focused heating efficiency of magnetic nanoparticles through the application of a constant magnetic field. Tuning of the constant magnetic field parameters may result to minimizing thermal shock in surrounding regions without affecting the beneficiary thermal outcome in the focusing region.