Needle insertion simulator for effective RF hyperthermia treatment

Hyperthermia treatment is a kind of cancer thermal treatment based on that tumor are weak at a temperature of 42–43 degrees Celsius. A radio frequency (RF) interstitial hyperthermia treatment is operated with needle electrodes. In clinics, when a doctor performs surgery with this thermal treatment, it is needed to precisely recognize the needle insertion positon and angle inside the human body. Accordingly, medical doctors are operating with an X-ray CT. In this study, we developed a virtual insertion simulator with hand tracking sensors for planning and training effective heating before the operation. This virtual reality system measures the operator's hand position precisely, using two hand-tracking sensors arranged orthogonal to each other to cover blind spots. We experimented with ager phantom and compared the accuracy between one and two sensor systems. From the measurement results, it was found that when using two tracking sensors, the positioning accuracy improved in every direction. The differences between actual measurement data and that of the VR simulator were less than 2mm in every direction. By using the developed VR insertion simulator, medical doctors can plan and train more easily and precisely for effective RF interstitial hyperthermia surgery.