JPH01115369A - Applicator for hyperthermia - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To miniaturize an apparatus as a whole and to rapidly treat a living body, by constituting the exciting antenna forming a part of a current supply means of a loop antenna and mounting said loop antenna to a shortcircuit plate. CONSTITUTION:Unit applicators 1 are arranged in three rows in up-and-down directions as well as in left and right directions so as to arrange the aperture surfaces thereof on the same plane. Each current supply connector 3 for connecting each current supply coaxial wire 4 is provided to the central part of each shortcircuit plate 2b and, further, an exciting loop antenna 5 is mounted to the inside of the connector 3 in a revolvable manner. A current supply means 7 is constituted of the current supply connector 3, the coaxial wire 4 and the loop antenna 5. A knob 6 as a revolving means is connected and mounted to the loop antenna 5. Further, each of the unit applicators 1 is filled with distilled water W and miniaturization is attained, and the matching with a living body to be irradiated and the surface cooling of said living body can be performed.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an applicator for heating therapy, and in particular, an applicator for heating therapy for heating a predetermined part of a living body using electromagnetic waves. Regarding.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, treatment using heating therapy (also called "hyperthermia") has been in the spotlight, especially for treating malignant tumors such as 4
A number of research reports have shown that continuous heating at around 3°C for 1 to 2 hours and repeating this at regular intervals can inhibit the regenerative function of cancer cells and at the same time kill many of them. It is done in (
Measurement and control vol1.22. No, 10). This type of heating therapy includes a general heating method and a local heating method. Among these, methods using electromagnetic waves, methods using electromagnetic induction, methods using ultrasound, and the like have been proposed as local heating methods for selectively warming only the cancerous tissue and its surroundings.

Conventionally, when heating cancer deep within the body using electromagnetic waves, a heating applicator is used to send the electromagnetic waves into the body, and the energy of the electromagnetic waves is focused to raise the temperature of the cancerous area more than the other parts. As necessary, a so-called array type applicator in which several waveguide type unit applicators are combined has been proposed. An example is shown in FIG.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, in the conventional example shown in FIG. 5, each unit applicator 10 is located on the side surface (upper, lower side) of the waveguide.

Because it is a type (electric field coupling type) that feeds power to the rod-shaped excitation antenna 11 installed on the right side and the left side,
As shown in the figure, it is not possible to make close contact between the unit applicators in the vertical direction, which not only makes the entire device unnecessarily large and inconvenient to handle, but also makes it difficult to fix it on a living body during treatment. The disadvantage is that the equipment is large-scale and cannot provide prompt treatment.

[Purpose of the invention]

An object of the present invention is to improve the disadvantages of the conventional example, and in particular to provide an applicator for heating therapy that can miniaturize the entire device and provide rapid treatment to a living body.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides a waveguide-type applicator body having an opening at one end, a shorting plate at the other end, and filling the inside with water, and this applicator body. A plurality of unit applicators each having a power feeding means disposed on the short-circuiting plate side of the main body are formed, and the opening surfaces of each unit applicator are arranged on the same surface to integrate each unit applicator. In this method, the excitation antenna that forms part of the power feeding means is constructed of a loop antenna, and this loop antenna is attached to a shorting plate, thereby achieving the above-mentioned purpose. .

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4.

This embodiment uses a unit applicator 1 as shown in FIG.
,1,1. . . . are arranged in three rows each in the vertical and horizontal directions with their opening surfaces aligned on the same plane.

Each unit applicator 1 has a rectangular waveguide 2a whose vertical and horizontal lengths are equal (see FIG. 2) as shown in FIG.
The waveguide 2a consists of a shorting plate 2b attached to one open end (the right end in FIG. 1), and a dielectric plate 2c attached to the other open end (the left end in FIG. 1). It has an applicator body 2. Therefore, in this embodiment, the other open end of the waveguide 2a serves as an open surface.

A power feeding connector 3 for connecting a power feeding coaxial 4 is provided in the center of the shorting plate 2b, and an excitation loop antenna 5 is rotatably equipped inside this connector 3. ing. These power supply connectors 3 and coax 4
and the loop antenna 5 constitute a power feeding means 7. In FIG. 1, the loop antenna 5 is arranged so that the direction of the electric field within each unit applicator 1 is 1 as shown in FIG. 4 (2).
It is set so that it is rotated 90' in the same direction every third time. This loop antenna 5 is connected and equipped with a knob 6 as a rotating means.

Here, in a micro loop used for excitation of a normal cavity resonator, reflection becomes large due to a reactance component or due to low radiation resistance, and it is not suitable for excitation of an applicator. Therefore, in this embodiment, the loop antenna 5
For example, one with a total length of about 1/2 wavelength is used. Therefore, in this embodiment, there is little reflection toward the power feeding side during excitation, and power can be effectively fed into the unit applicator 1 and can be efficiently radiated from the aperture surface.

In addition, the unit applicator 1 is filled with distilled water W to reduce the size (for example, for 500 MHz, a = approximately 2.5
cm), and also enables alignment with the irradiated living body and surface cooling of the irradiated living body.

Now, place the surface of the loop antenna 5 of the unit applicator 1 on the first
When set in the vertical direction of the figure and feeding power to the loop antenna 5 via the power feeding coaxial 4, the waveguide mode shown in FIG. 3 (1), that is, the TE mode, can be easily excited. The electromagnetic field distribution on the aperture surface can be considered to be approximately the same.

Moreover, when the loop antenna 5 is rotated 90 degrees from the position shown in FIG. 1, the waveguide mode shown in FIG. 3 (2), that is, T
The EoI mode can be excited, and any polarized mode can be easily excited at intermediate positions between 0 and 90 degrees.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be explained.

Now, when performing heating treatment for cancer deep within the body, rotate the knob 6 of each unit applicator 1 so that the internal loop antenna 5 is in the vertical direction as shown in Figure 1, and all unit applicators are Figure 4 (1)
), by appropriately adjusting the phase of each unit applicator 1 (in this case, each unit applicator is equipped with a phase adjustment means), energy can be locally generated deep within the body due to the synergistic effect of interference. can be concentrated (this has been confirmed by experiment). This allows for deep heating. Note that the arrows shown in FIG. 4 indicate electric fields.

On the other hand, when the cancerous tissue to be heated has spread to the surface of the living body, power is supplied so that the electric and magnetic surfaces of adjacent applicators arranged in an array differ by 90° (the fourth
(See Figure (2)). In this case, since there is no interference between adjacent electromagnetic waves, it is possible to perform heating evenly and approximately in the same manner.

As described above, according to this embodiment, since the power supply means 7 of each unit applicator 1 is installed on the shorting plate 2b, the opening surfaces of each element applicator can be aligned on substantially the same plane, and each Adjacent applicators can be placed in close contact with each other, which has the advantage that the entire applicator device can be downsized (while maintaining the same effective opening area). In addition, unlike the conventional example described above, a magnetic field coupling type unit applicator 1°1,
. . . using loop antennas 5, 5. ...
Since the apparatus has a rotatable structure, there is an advantage that both deep heating and heating of the surface of the living body can be performed using the same applicator device.

Furthermore, in this embodiment, the loop antenna 5 is connected to the shorting plate 2b.
Since it is equipped so that it can be rotated and is also equipped with a rotation means, the direction of the electric field of electromagnetic waves can be set not only in the case shown in Fig. 4 (2) but also as shown in Fig. 4 (3). Another advantage is that various forms can be taken depending on the situation when treating the surface of a living body.

In addition, in the above embodiment, each element applicator 1, 1
．． Although the case where the openings of ... are arranged on the same plane is illustrated, the present invention is not limited to this.
For example, the entire opening may be formed and arranged so as to form a gently curved surface.

〔Effect of the invention〕

The present invention is configured and functions as described above.According to this, the excitation antenna of each unit applicator is constituted by a loop antenna, and this loop antenna is attached to the shorting plate, so that the opening can be effectively To provide an excellent applicator for heating therapy, which is capable of reducing the size of the entire device while maintaining the same opening area size, which makes it easy to handle, and enables rapid treatment of a living body. Can be done.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a partially cutaway front view showing an embodiment of the present invention;
Figure 2 is a perspective view of the embodiment shown in Figure 1, Figure 3 (1) (2)
are explanatory diagrams of the waveguide mode of the element applicator of the embodiment of FIG. 1, respectively, and FIG.
FIG. 5 is a front view showing a conventional example. 1... Unit applicator, 2... Applicator body, 2a... Waveguide, 2b...
...Short circuit plate, 5...Excitation antenna, 7...
...Power supply means. Patent applicant: Oka 1) Bunmei (and 2 others) District 1, Figure 3, Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A waveguide-type applicator body having an opening at one end, a shorting plate at the other end, and filling the inside with water;
A plurality of unit applicators each having a power feeding means disposed on the shorting plate side of the applicator body are formed, and the opening surfaces of each unit applicator are disposed on the same surface to form a plurality of unit applicators. An applicator for heating therapy, characterized in that an excitation antenna which is integrally connected and forms a part of the power feeding means is constituted by a loop antenna, and the loop antenna is attached to the short circuit plate.