Subsurface Tumor Ablation with Near-infrared Radiation using Intratumoral and Intravenous Injection of Nanoparticles

Abstract

Targeting nanoparticles to the tumor site is a salient feature for the tumor ablation during plasmonic photo-thermal therapy. Many of the safety considerations in surgical intervention suggest the alternative route of laser irradiation for photo-thermal destruction of tissues in presence of gold nanorods. The degree of tissue damage depends on laser irradiation parameters such as power, and image size as well as absorption and scattering properties of tissues. This paper analyzes, using finite element modeling, photo-thermal heating of tumor in the presence of intravenous blood injection or intratumorally injected gold nanorods. The Pennes bio-heat transfer equation was solved to compute temperature evolution. A volumetric heat generation based on Beer-Lambert law was used to model the laser heating. The predicted temperatures at the tumor surface were compared with available experimental results and are found to be good. To determine the efficacy of intratumoral injection of nanoparticles, a comparative ...