|
|
Heating Things Up…While Keeping Our Cool!
STM Newsletter
March 2021
| |
One of the best ways that STM members can come together is to renew their membership and get ready to participate in Thermal Medicine based. Virtual events will be interactive in real-time so STM members can engage with the speakers and foster good dialogue.
Upcoming virtual events include:
| |
April 21st at 11am- noon EST:
Virtual webinar on the benefits of exercise induced hyperthermia
Join us to celebrate the accomplishments of the STM members who participated in the First Annual Exercise Challenge. Proceeds from the event will support early career STM memberships. Raffle winner amongst exercise challenge participants will be announced.
Speakers:
| |
 | Zhen Yan, PhD:
Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Director of the Center for Skeletal Muscle Research, University of Virginia:
Exercise-induced EcSOD: A molecular mediator of the health benefits of physical activity
| |  | Allison Betof Warner, MD, PhD:
Assistant Attending Physician, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center:
Exercise for modifying the tumor environment to provide anti-tumor immunity
| |
| | |
April 14th-15th:
VisualizeMED
Over the past few years, STM has developed a close alliance with the American Society for Mechanical Engineers to develop lexicon and to explore mutual research in the fields of thermal medicine and mechanical engineering. STM is proud to support the ASME Visualize MED program, which will be preceded by a workshop on cryopreservation. VisualizeMED is enabling the transformation of modeling and simulation in medicine by bringing to you the trailblazers of technology and masters of technique who are effectively implementing it.
Register and attend VisualizeMED, taking place April 14-15, 2021, to learn and connect with leading experts of technology and technique who are effectively implementing modeling and simulation in medicine. This 2-day virtual event is designed to help attendees effectively leverage this technology to increase innovation, improve quality, expedite speed to market, and much more. Hear case studies from leading pharmaceutical and medical device companies and understand how modeling and simulation techniques have enabled quicker, more efficient, and more successful outcomes. Understand how simulations are pre-training artificial intelligence systems to allow physicians to develop cancer treatment plans with fewer images and less radiation exposure to patients. Learn about this and much more at VisualizeMED and network with other attendees at the event. Gain insight and new perspectives on the latest technology with industry experts through the virtual event platform. Register now for the VisualizeMED: Modeling and Simulation in Medicine.
| |
May 15-16th (On Demand Sessions):
STM and ASLMS will partner for the second joint symposium. The topic for this event is Photothermal Nanoparticles. This content is free for STM members.
Speakers:
| |
 |
Robert Griffin, PhD:
Professor, Radiation Oncology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences:
Gold photothermal nanoparticles for cancer and bacteria
| |  |
Kaushal Rege, PhD:
Professor, Chemical Engineering, Arizona State University:
Gold nanoparticles for wound sealing
| |  |
Nicole Levi, PhD:
Associate Professor, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Wake Forest University School of Medicine:
Photothermal polymer nanoparticles
| |
| | |
 |
Rohan Fernandes, PhD:
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences:
Prussian blue nanoparticles and immuneresponses
| |  |
Kanav Khosla, PhD:
Post-doctoral Research Associate, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota:
Using photothermal nanoparticles for warming cryopreserved tissues
| |  |
Ravi Singh, PhD:
Associate Professor, Cancer Biology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine:
Photothermalsensitization of breast cancer to radiation
| |
| | |
June (date and time TBD): Chris Diedrich and Rohan Fernandes are coordinating a symposium on focused ultrasound. Details will be provided soon!
| |
July 19: STM will partner with the Society for Neuro-Oncology for a joint session on thermal therapies for brain tumors. More details will be provided soon!
| |
ICHO occurs every four years and combines expertise from three partnering societies: the Asian Society of Hyperthermic Oncology (ASHO), the Society for Thermal Medicine (STM), and the European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology (ESHO).
The deadline for abstract submission is April 30, 2021
Topics include:
•Clinical hyperthermia trials
•Cryotherapy
•Emerging hyperthermia biology
•Experimental hyperthermia studies
•High intensity focused ultrasound hyperthermia technology
•HIPEC and HIVEC
•Hyperthermia in pediatrics
•Image guidance
•Mild hyperthermia
•Modeling, treatment planning and optimization
•MR imaging & thermometry
•Nanoparticles hyperthermia & ablation techniques
•Nanotechnology and drug delivery
•Novel targeted drug delivery approaches
•Radiation/Chemo + hyperthermia
•Radiofrequency and microwave electromagnetic hyperthermia technology
•Temperature monitoring
•Thermal ablation biology
•Thermal ablation devices (RF, MW, Laser)
•Thermal dose and treatment outcome
•Thermal therapies
•Vendor presentations
•other topics
| |
Updates: The Minorities and Women in Science Committees Mentorship Program
| |
The mentorship program has been underway for the past two months and mentees are thriving:
“The best aspect of being a mentee is rediscovering my own inner skills and realization that we all have it in ourselves, just need to have the self-realization and sometimes when we talk with experienced mentors, we kind of re discover our own self better.” - Krishna Ramajayan
Junior scientists: Do you want to learn more about how to advance your careers in academia or industry? Having a mentor can help you find your path! Join senior STM members virtually for 1 on 1 monthly mentoring.
The initiative is open to ALL members of the Society regardless of background; however, the Committees strongly encourage female and minority members to take part.
| |
Membership - Support STM during this critical time
| |
Don’t let your STM membership lapse! Even though we are not having an in-person meeting until ICHO later this year, STM is planning webinars to spread our knowledge, develop new ideas, and engage with one another. 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
- Discount on ICHO 2021 registration fees
- Free registration to all STM webinars/mini-symposia
- A 30% discount on IJH article submission fees
- Complementary sponsorship of 2 junior investigators
In conjunction with renewing your STM membership, you can further support STM by participating in the STM virtual exercise challenge!
| |
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:
| |
Call for Committee Members
| |
- STM is seeking your help in contributing to editing the monthly newsletter. This would be an opportunity to contribute and build your CV. Inquire with Nicole Levi-Polyachenko, nlevi@wakehealth.edu.
- STM now has two new committees that would welcome the participation of junior and established members:
- Minorities in STM (chaired by Rajiv Chopra and Raquel Martinez) and
- Women in STM (chaired by Nicole Levi and Colleen Crouch)
We encourage you to become more involved in STM through participation in these committees! Contact stm@allenpress.com to sign up.
- STM has a new member's only jobs section on our website, for both industry and academic positions. NEW Jobs have recently been posted! Please note, in order to access the jobs page you must be signed in as an active STM member. Send any jobs wanted or job postings to stm@allenpress.com and we will add them to the website. Please contact us if you have any questions/concerns.
| |
International Journal of Hyperthermia Updates
| |
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!
| |
Featured International Journal of Hyperthermia Articles
| |
Yoriko Ibuki, Yutaka Takahashi, Keisuke Tamari, Kazumasa Minami, Yuji Seo, Fumiaki Isohashi, Masahiko Koizumi & Kazuhiko Ogawa
Purpose
To evaluate the antitumor efficacy in local and distant tumors induced by local hyperthermia with CTLA-4 blockade
Methods
A mouse breast cancer cell line was inoculated into both sides of the legs of mice. The mice were treated with three administrations of CTLA-4 blockade, a single application of local hyperthermia (42.5 °C for 20 min) to the tumor on one side of the leg, or the combination of the two. Tumor growth in locally heated tumors (HT tumors) and unheated distant tumors (UnHT tumors) and overall survival were evaluated.
Results
In the combination group, tumor volume significantly decreased for both HT and UnHT tumors compared with the tumors in the untreated and local hyperthermia monotherapy groups. Remarkable efficacy was only observed in the combination therapy group, in which 7 of 18 mice responded to HT and UnHT tumors, with significant prolonged overall survival.
| |
Purpose
To develop a head and neck hyperthermia phased array system compatible with a 1.5 T magnetic resonance (MR) scanner for noninvasive thermometry.
Methods
We designed a dielectric-parabolic-reflector antenna (DiPRA) based on a printed reflector backed dipole antenna and studied its predicted and measured performance in a flat configuration (30 mm thick water bolus and muscle equivalent layer). Thereafter, we designed a phased array applicator model (‘MRcollar’) consisting of 12 DiPRA modules placed on a radius of 180 mm. Theoretical heating performance of the MRcollar model was benchmarked against the current clinical applicator (HYPERcollar3D) using specific (3D) head and neck models of 28 treated patients. Lastly, we assessed the influence of the DiPRA modules on MR scanning quality.
Results
The predicted and measured reflection coefficients (S11) of the DiPRA module are below −20 dB. The maximum specific absorption rate (SAR) in the area under the antenna was 47% higher than for the antenna without encasing. Compared to the HYPERcollar3D, the MRcollar design incorporates 31% less demineralized water (−2.5 L), improves the predicted TC25 (target volume enclosed by 25% iso-SAR contour) by 4.1% and TC50 by 8.5%, while the target-to-hotspot quotient (THQ) is minimally affected (−1.6%). MR experiments showed that the DiPRA modules do not affect MR transmit/receive performance.
Conclusion
Our results suggest that head and neck hyperthermia delivery quality with the MRcollar can be maintained, while facilitating simultaneous noninvasive MR thermometry for treatment monitoring and control.
| |
Bo-wen Zhuang, Xiao-hua Xie, Dao-peng Yang, Man-xia Lin, Wei Wang, Ming-de Lu, Ming Kuang & Xiao-yan Xie
Objective
To investigate the risk factors affecting the technical failure of artificial ascites (AA) formation and to evaluate the local control efficacy of percutaneous thermal ablation assisted by the AA for hepatic tumors.
Methods
A total of 341 patients with 362 hepatic tumors who underwent thermal ablation assisted by AA were reviewed retrospectively. The technical success of AA, the volume of liquid, and local efficacy after ablation were assessed. Predictive factors for the technical failure of AA formation and local tumor progression (LTP) were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analysis.
Results
The technical success rate of AA formation was 81.8% (296/362). The amount of fluid was higher when the tumor was located in the left lobe of the liver than when it was located in the right lobe (median 950 ml versus 700 ml, p < 0.001). Previous hepatic resection (OR: 12.63, 95% CI: 2.93–54.45, p < 0.001), ablation (OR: 6.48, 95% CI: 1.36–30.92, p = 0.019) and upper-abdomen surgery (OR: 11.34, 95% CI: 1.96–65.67, p = 0.007) were the independent risk factors of AA failure. In the AA success group, the complete ablation rate was higher and the LTP rate was lower than that in the AA failure group (98.7 versus 92.4%, p = 0.012; 8.8 versus 21.2%, p = 0.004). Multivariate analysis identified AA failure (p = 0.004), tumor size (>3.0 cm) (p = 0.002) and metastatic liver tumor (p = 0.008) as independent risk factors for LTP.
Conclusion
History of hepatic resection, ablation and upper abdomen surgery were significant predictive factors affecting the technical failure of AA formation. Successful introduction of AA before thermal ablation can achieve better local tumor control efficacy.
| |
Abstract
Increased transmissibility of the pandemic severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been noted to occur at lower ambient temperatures. This is seemingly related to a better replication of most respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, at lower-than-core body temperatures (i.e., 33 °C vs 37 °C). Also, intrinsic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 make it a heat-susceptible pathogen. Thermotherapy has successfully been used to combat viral infections in plants which could otherwise result in great economic losses; 90% of viruses causing infections in plants are positive-sense single-stranded ribonucleic acid (+ssRNA) viruses, a characteristic shared by SARS-CoV-2. Thus, it is possible to envision the use of heat-based interventions (thermotherapy or mild-temperature hyperthermia) in patients with COVID-19 for which moderate cycles (every 8–12 h) of mild-temperature hyperthermia (1–2 h) have been proposed. However, there are potential safety and mechanistic concerns which could limit the use of thermotherapy only to patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 to prevent disease progression rather than to treat patients who have already progressed to severe-to-critical COVID-19. Here, we review the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 which make it a heat-susceptible virus, potential host mechanisms which could be enhanced at higher temperatures to aid viral clearance, and how thermotherapy could be investigated as a modality of treatment in patients with COVID-19 while taking into consideration potential risks.
| |
|
STM Business Office | PO Box 7065 | Lawrence, KS 66044-1897 USA
| |
|
|
|
|
