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Heating Things Up…While Keeping Our Cool!
STM Newsletter
October 2021
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STM congratulates our partnering societies for hosting a fantastic International Congress on Hyperthermic Oncology! ICHO has been an outstanding worldwide event. It was a lot of fun to connect with our colleagues virtually, and learn more about Thermal Medicine. Thank you for creating a memorable conference experience!
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STM will hold a Business Meeting on Oct. 19th from 1:30- 2:30 EST., and all members are included and eagerly expected to attend, if possible. Please attend to learn more about the events for next year, and contribute your ideas. Access link is listed below.
Key items include:
1. Upcoming events: STM will host its annual meeting May 1-4, 2022 virtually, due to the current travel restrictions for some members. The theme for the event will be disclosed, and your input is requested so we can develop the best scientific content to suite what STM members want.
2. But….get ready, because we are planning an in-person scientific retreat in Fall 2022 based on STM member input from the business meeting. Come join the business meeting, and tell us what you would like to see as we plan an in-person event!
3. Election results are in! The New STM Council members will be announced during the business meeting.
4. Development/ revamping of committee will be disucssed.
5. Updates on the financial, and membership status of will be provided, including new paths forward.
6. Updates from IJH Editor, Dr. Mark Dewhirst, will be provided.
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Access link to join the Business Meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone:
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Virtual Symposia and Upcoming Events:
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Hyperthermia Therapy Practice School, Oct. 29-30, 2021
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Save the date! Hyperthermia Therapy Practice School - October 29-30, 2021After a successful first edition, the University of Maryland School of Medicine has the pleasure to announce the second edition of the Hyperthermia Therapy Practice School. This 2-day CME-accredited course will provide attendees with theoretical and practical aspects of superficial, interstitial, and deep hyperthermia therapy (HT). The first day will include lectures and the review of clinical cases to explain the different approaches to treat different treatment sites. On the second day, small groups will facilitate in-depth training of practical guidelines for HT treatment delivery, with hands-on practice with HT software and hardware using anatomical experimental phantoms. Attending practitioners will be made aware of the powerful adjuvant effect of combining HT with the different forms of radiation treatment and will benefit from a HT formal training in a clinical environment.
- Dates: October 29-30, 2021
- Location: Baltimore Maryland, USA
- CME credits: Maximum of 15.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™
- Course Directors: Zeljko Vujaskovic, MD, PhD and Dario Rodrigues, PhD
- Target audience: Oncologists, Medical Physicists, Radiation Therapists, Nurses, Students, Industry
More information and registration HERE.
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Moving Breast Cancer Treatments FORWARD Virtual Symposium, Oct. 28, 1pm-3:30pm EDT
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Join leading cancer researchers for Moving Breast Cancer Treatments FORWARD, a virtual symposium that tackles how we can better diagnose and treat breast cancer. World-renowned researcher Lisa M. Coussens, Ph.D., will deliver the Jayne Koskinas Memorial Lecture. A panel featuring researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Indiana University will round out the event.
Learn more about the spirit of collaboration that drives this annual event.
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Membership - Support STM during this critical time
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NOW is a critical time to show your support for STM and rebuild your connections!
Membership in The Society for Thermal Medicine is open to anyone interested in the study of thermal medicine.
Membership rights and privileges include:
- Participating in society elections
- Committee service
- Access to restricted “members-only” areas of the STM website
- Free registration to all STM webinars/mini-symposia
- A 30% discount on IJH article submission fees
- Complementary sponsorship of 2 junior investigators
- Discounted registration to the 2022 STM Virtual Meeting and our Fall Retreat
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If you have suggestions for how we can better improve STM as we delve together into these new plans, please reach out, and let us know:
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International Journal of Hyperthermia updates
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IJH is always interested in innovative ideas to increase the breadth of the journal and we strongly hope that the special issues venue will help in the expansion. We are open to additional Industry-Sponsored or Foundation sponsored Special Issues. Please let us know if you have an idea for one!
Journal Update from the Editor:
IJH is pleased to announce that there is a Special Issue on Colorectal Cancer Metastasis, edited by Professor Constantinos Sofocleous, under the final stages of development.
There is also a special issue under development for next year, on the subject of Thermal Modeling, which will be edited by Hana Trefna and Maarten Paulides.
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Featured International Journal of Hyperthermia highlighted articles
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Van Gia Truong, Hyeonsoo Kim, Jin-Seok Park, Van Nam Tran & Hyun Wook Kang
Published online: 02 September 2021
Views: 227
Background
The therapeutic capacity of multiple cylindrical interstitial laser ablations (CILAs) of pancreatic tissue was evaluated with 1064 nm laser light in ex vivo and in vivo porcine pancreatic models.
Methods
A diffusing applicator was sequentially employed to deliver 1064 nm laser light in a cylindrical distribution to ablate a large volume of pancreatic tissue. Ex vivo tissue was tested at various power levels (5, 7, and 10 W) under US imaging. An in vivo porcine model was used to evaluate the clinical feasibility of multiple CILAs on pancreatic tissue at 5 W via laparotomy (N = 3).
Results
Multiple CILAs symmetrically ablated a range of ex vivo tissue volumes (2.4–6.0 cm3) at various power levels. Multiple CILAs warranted a therapeutic capacity of symmetrically ablating in vivo pancreatic tissue. Both ex vivo and in vivo pancreatic tissues after multiple CILAs at 5 W confirmed the absence of or minimal thermal injury to the peripheral tissue and carbonization.
Conclusions
The current findings suggest that the collective thermal effects from multiple CILAs can help widely ablate pancreatic tissue with minimal thermal injury. Further in vivo studies will investigate the safety of the proposed CILA treatment as well as acute/chronic responses of pancreatic tissue for clinical translations.
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Ngo Fung Daniel Lam, Ian Rivens, Sharon L. Giles, Emma Harris, Nandita M. deSouza & Gail ter Haar
Published online: 29 July 2021
Views: 270
Abstract
Background
Patient suitability for magnetic resonance-guided high intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU) therapy of pelvic tumors is currently assessed by visual estimation of the proportion of tumor that can be reached by the device’s focus (coverage). Since it is important to assess whether enough energy reaches the tumor to achieve ablation, a methodology for estimating the proportion of the tumor that can be ablated (treatability) was developed. Predicted treatability was compared against clinically achieved thermal ablation.
Methods
MR Dixon sequence images of five patients with recurrent gynecological tumors were acquired during their treatment. Acousto-thermal simulations were performed using k-Wave for three exposure points (the deepest and shallowest reachable focal points within the tumor, identified from tumor coverage analysis, and a point halfway in-between) per patient. Interpolation between the resulting simulated ablated tissue volumes was used to estimate the maximum treatable depth and hence, tumor treatability. Predicted treatability was compared both to predicted tumor coverage and to the clinically treated tumor volume. The intended and simulated volumes and positions of ablated tissues were compared.
Results
Predicted treatability was less than coverage by 52% (range: 31–78%) of the tumor volume. Predicted and clinical treatability differed by 9% (range: 1–25%) of tumor volume. Ablated tissue volume and position varied with beam path length through tissue.
Conclusion
Tumor coverage overestimated patient suitability for MRgHIFU therapy. Employing patient-specific simulations improved treatability assessment. Patient treatability assessment using simulations is feasible.
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Yineng Zheng, Liping Chen, Mengqi Liu, Jiahui Wu, Renqiang Yu & Fajin Lv
Published online: 06 September 2021
Views: 241
Objectives
To develop and assess nonenhanced MRI-based radiomics model for the preoperative prediction of nonperfused volume (NPV) ratio of uterine leiomyomas after high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment.
Methods
Two hundred and five patients with uterine leiomyomas treated by HIFU were enrolled and allocated to training (N =164) and testing cohorts (N = 41). Pyradiomics was used to extract radiomics features from T2-weighted images and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) map generated from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). The clinico-radiological model, radiomics model, and radiomics-clinical model which combined the selected radiomics features and clinical parameters were used to predict technical outcomes determined by NPV ratios where three classification groups were created (NPV ratio ≤ 50%, 50–80% or ≥ 80%). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, area under the curve (AUC), and calibration and decision curve analyses were performed to illustrate the prediction performance and clinical usefulness of model in the training and testing cohorts.
Results
The multi-parametric MRI-based radiomics model outperformed T2-weighted imaging (T2WI)-based radiomics model, which achieved an average AUC of 0.769 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.701–0.842), and showed satisfactory prediction performance for NPV ratio classification. The radiomics-clinical model demonstrated best prediction performance for HIFU treatment outcome, with an average AUC of 0.802 (95% CI, 0.796–0.850) and an accuracy of 0.762 (95% CI, 0.698–0.815) in the testing cohort, compared to the clinico-radiological and radiomics models. The decision curve also indicated favorable clinical usefulness of the radiomics-clinical model.
Conclusions
Nonenhanced MRI-based radiomics has potential in the preoperative prediction of NPV ratio for HIFU ablation of uterine leiomyomas.
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