Apparatus for treating breast lesions using microwaves

Abstract

A method for selectively heating cancerous conditions of the breast including invasive ductal carcinoma and invasive glandular lobular carcinoma, and pre-cancerous conditions of the breast including ductal carcinoma in-situ, lobular carcinoma in-situ, and intraductal hyperplasia, as well as benign lesions (any localized pathological change in the breast tissue) such as fibroadenomas and cysts by irradiation of the breast tissue with adaptive phased array focused microwave energy is introduced. Microwave energy provides preferential heating of high-water content breast tissues such as carcinomas, fibroadenomas, and cysts compared to the surrounding lower-water content normal breast tissues. To focus the microwave energy in the breast, the patient's breast can be compressed and a single electric-field probe, inserted in the central portion of the breast, or two noninvasive electric-field probes on opposite sides of the breast skin, can be used to measure a feedback signal to adjust the microwave phase delivered to waveguide applicators on opposite sides of the compressed breast tissue. The initial microwave power delivered to the microwave applicators is set to a desired value that is known to produce a desired increase in temperature in breast tumors. Temperature feedback sensors are used to measure skin temperatures during treatment to adjust the microwave power delivered to the waveguide applicators to avoid overheating the skin. The microwave energy delivered to the waveguide applicators is monitored in real time during treatment, and the treatment is completed when a desired total microwave energy dose has been administered. By heating and destroying the breast lesion sufficiently, lesions can be reduced in size and surrounding normal breast tissues are spared so that surgical mastectomy can be replaced with surgical lumpectomy or the lesions can be completely destroyed so that surgical mastectomy or lumpectomy is avoided.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a minimally invasive method and apparatus for applying hyperthermic focused energy, such as an adaptive microwave phased array, for the treatment of ductal and adenocarcinomas, intraductal hyperplasia, and breast conditions such as compression Benign lesions of fibroadenomas and cysts in tissue. In addition, the methods and devices according to the present invention can also be used to treat healthy tissue containing high water content cells with undetected microscopic pathological changes to prevent the development and regeneration of cancerous, precancerous and benign breast lesions. Background technique [0002] To treat underlying breast cancer with hyperthermia, a large amount of tissue, such as a quarter or more of the breast, must be heated. We can know that almost 90% of breast cancers arise in the tissue of the milk ducts (milk ducts), and most of the rest arise in the lobules of glandular tissue (milk sacs) (...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

A medically unacceptable location for cyst treatment exists, as known methods of removing cysts include only invasive surgical procedures

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