Photothermal therapy

Prostate focal therapy targets only cancerous lesions in the prostate while ensuring no treatment effect on critical structures such as the rectum. In this work, we report on the assembly and testing of a transrectal diffuse optical tomography (TRDOT) system for monitoring the size of coagulated lesions generated during photothermal focal therapy of prostate tumors. During treatment, TRDOT signal is sensitive to the large increase in tissue optical scattering that occurs with thermally-induced tissue coagulation. Using ex vivo samples, we demonstrate that TRDOT can accurately map the size of a treatment-induced lesion and show that clinical measurements are feasible. read more