A REVIEW ON WATER BOLUS STRUCTURE INTEGRATION FOR NON-INVASIVE HYPERTHERMIA TREATMENT

This paper presents a review of hyperthermia on a modified water bolus structure for breast cancer. Hyperthermia is an alternative treatment for cancer, which uses high heat to treat a cancer patient. Because of certain limitations, especially difficult to control focus position distance on the treated tissue has contributed to the low success rate of the treatment. In addition, excessive skin burn problems and adverse health effects on surrounding healthy tissue could occur as a result of high temperature applied on the skin and wide area of unwanted hot spots. Proper design on hyperthermia applicator can assist in reducing unwanted hot spots in the vicinity area while improving the focus position distance on the treated tissue, simultaneously. Meanwhile, massive skin burns can be overcome with the addition of water bolus. Based on previous research on water bolus, various designs have been investigated. However, further research needs to be carried out in order to provide more significant results on different stages of cancer. Therefore, in this research, a water bolus is investigated further by taking into consideration several factors to optimize the function of water bolus as a cooling system. Hence, it may reduce unwanted hot spots, minimize skin burn problem, while maintaining the required focus position distance on the treated tissue during the hyperthermia execution procedure. A deductive and inductive literature review approach is used to determine the research gap of current research on water bolus addition to hyperthermia procedure. A rectangular water bolus structure was used the most in hyperthermia research as it can be modified further, and it has the largest covered area for reducing unwanted hot spots