LASER ABLATION FOR PROSTATE CANCER THERAPIES: MATHEMATICAL MODELING

laser ablation is a promising non-invasive technique for prostate cancer therapies, avoiding complications related to whole-gland treatments and ensuring the preservation of prostate functions. However, this method reliability is still an unsolved issue, due to lack of approved medical treatment, which could lead to inappropriate exposure time and laser intensity, resulting in incomplete tumor destruction, regrowth, and metastasis occurrence. For these reasons, developing accurate models to assist and provide guidelines to surgeons is of great importance. In this work a predictive model, solved with the finite elements commercial software Comsol Multiphysics, has been implemented. The investigated 2D domain is made up by two concentric spheres, the inner one constituting the tumor and the external one, being the healthy tissue, both assumed to be porous media (made up by the tissue and the blood phase). The model couples the Local Thermal Non-Equilibrium (LTNE) bioheat model, to forecast the temperature field in the investigated domain, including variable porosity, with the optical model described by the Beer-Lambert's law, to evaluate the heat flux propagation, assuming a uniform and constant laser source, applied on top of the computational domain. The model has been validated on experimental data taken from the scientific literature, demonstrating its effectiveness. Finally, the effects of laser power and exposure time on temperature field and thermal damage, evaluated by means of the Arrhenius law, are analyzed, demonstrating the potentiality of this technique to induce necrosis in the tumor avoiding large damages to the surrounding healthy tissue.