Image-guided therapy of a tissue

Inventors

Tyc, Richard • Qureshi, Salman • Grant, Mark Andrew • Fernandes, Luis Filipe Silva • Carreira, Daniel Prazeres • Schellhorn, John

Assignees

Monteris Medical Corp

Abstract

Image-guided therapy of a tissue can utilize magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or another medical imaging device to guide an instrument within the tissue. A workstation can actuate movement of the instrument, and can actuate energy emission and/or cooling of the instrument to effect treatment to the tissue. The workstation and/or an operator of the workstation can be located outside a vicinity of an MRI device or other medical imaging device, and drive means for positioning the instrument can be located within the vicinity of the MRI device or the other medical imaging device. The instrument can be an MRI compatible laser probe that provides thermal therapy to, e.g., a tissue in a brain of a patient.

Core Innovation

The disclosed approach provides a method for effecting thermal therapy using an in vivo probe by positioning the probe in a volume in a patient and identifying a three-dimensional region of interest for thermal therapy. A processing circuitry identifies a treatment profile that comprises a plurality of target positions, where each target position is associated with one or more of a respective power level, a respective energy level, a respective emission pattern, a respective time period, and a respective geometry of a target area of the three-dimensional region of interest. The treatment profile is identified by calculating the plurality of target positions as a sequence of positions and alignments of the probe based on a symmetric or asymmetric output pattern of the probe.

The treatment profile further includes selecting a selected sequence corresponding to at least one of a minimum number of positions of the probe and a minimum treatment time for effecting the thermal therapy based on expected output of the probe. A desired trajectory of the probe is selected so as not to interfere with imaging equipment prior to the insertion of the probe into the volume. Thermal therapy is applied by activating delivery of therapeutic energy at a first target position, causing actuation of the probe to adjust at least one of a linear position and a rotational position to a next target position, and repeating delivery and actuation until therapeutic energy is delivered to at least a first volume of the three-dimensional region of interest.

A system implementation includes identifying a treatment profile for effecting thermal therapy to a three-dimensional region of interest by calculating probe position and alignment sequences based on a symmetric or asymmetric output pattern and selecting a sequence corresponding to a lowest number of positions or a lowest treatment time. The system applies thermal therapy by activating therapeutic energy delivery at target positions and repeatedly monitors temperature and thermal dose at points within or adjacent to the three-dimensional region of interest, then determines completion of thermal therapy at each target based on respective temperature and thermal dose derived from a temperature history over a specified time period.

Claims Coverage

The independent claims in the provided material are directed to a method for effecting in vivo thermal therapy, a system for effecting in vivo thermal therapy, and a non-transitory computer readable medium for effecting in vivo thermal therapy. Across these independent claims, the inventive features include treatment profile planning with symmetric/asymmetric output pattern sequence selection, trajectory selection to avoid interference with imaging equipment, sequential target delivery with probe linear/rotational adjustments, and temperature and thermal-dose-based completion determination using feedback from imaging or thermometry.

Across the independent claims, the planning portion centers on computing sequences of probe positions and alignments based on symmetric or asymmetric output patterns and selecting a sequence using minimum number of positions and/or minimum treatment time. Delivery proceeds through repeated activation at successive target positions with linear and rotational probe adjustments, and the disclosed system and computer-readable-medium variants add monitoring feedback and determining completion using temperature and/or thermal dose derived from temperature history, with imaging and thermometry feedback from MR imaging and thermometry imaging systems.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications