Design and Assessment of a Novel Biconical Human-Sized Alternating Magnetic Field Coil for MNP Hyperthermia Treatment of Deep-Seated Cancer

Sep 24, 2026

Magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) hyperthermia uses alternating magnetic fields (AMF) to generate localized heat by converting absorbed electromagnetic energy into a specific absorption rate (SAR), enabling treatment alone or alongside radiation and chemotherapy. AMF also penetrates tissue and induces eddy currents, whose Joule heating in normal tissue depends on electric-field–related contributions and scales with AMF frequency and coil current, increasing sharply for deep-seated tumors. The study proposes a novel human-sized biconical coil system designed to deliver clinically relevant AMF to tumor regions while minimizing eddy-current SAR and Joule heating in healthy tissue. Numerical electromagnetic, temperature, and SAR simulations on a full-body 3D human model for pancreatic cancer quantify improved safety versus commonly used AMF coils.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Simple Summary

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

Citation Information

Publication and License

cancers Article Design and Assessment of a Novel Biconical Human-Sized Alternating Magnetic Field Coil for MNP Hyperthermia Treatment of Deep-Seated Cancer Levan Shoshiashvili 1, Irma Shamatava 1,2, David Kakulia 1 and Fridon Shubitidze 2, * Citation: Shoshiashvili, L.; Shamatava, I.; Kakulia, D.; Shubitidze, F. Design and Assessment of a Novel Biconical Human-Sized Alternating Magnetic Field Coil for MNP Hyperthermia Treatment of Deep-Seated Cancer. Cancers 2023, 15, 1672. [https://](https://)[ ](https://)[doi.org/10.3390/cancers15061672](doi.org/10.3390/cancers15061672) Academic Editors: Elizabeth Repasky, Hans Crezee and Holger Grüll Received: 24 January 2023 Revised: 7 March 2023 Accepted: 7 March 2023 Published: 8 March 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ([https://](https://)[ ](https://)[creativecommons.org/licenses/by/](creativecommons.org/licenses/by/)[ ](creativecommons.org/licenses/by/)[4.0/](4.0/)) . 1 Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, 0179 Tbilisi, Georgia 2 Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA * Correspondence: [fridon.shubitidze@dartmouth.edu](fridon.shubitidze@dartmouth.edu); Tel.: +1-603-646-3671 Simple Summary: A novel human-sized alternating magnetic ﬁeld (AMF) coil is researched, designed and evaluated using numerical methods to achieve magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia therapy in deep-seated tumors while avoiding damage to normal tissues. This is achieved by utilizing a circular current's electric and magnetic ﬁeld spatial distributions. The studies are done for pancreatic cancer. Computational electromagnetic and temperature distributions are presented for a full-body, 3D human model. The results showed that the proposed human-sized coil could provide clinically relevant AMF to cancerous regions while causing negligible Joule heating to normal tissue, compared to commonly used AMF coils. Abstract: Magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) hyperthermia therapy is a treatment technique that can be used alone or as an adjunct to radiation and/or chemotherapies for killing cancer cells. During treatment, MNPs absorb a part of electromagnetic ﬁeld (EMF) energy and generate localized heat when subjected to an alternating magnetic ﬁeld (AMF) . The MNP-absorbed EMF energy, which is characterized by a speciﬁc absorption rate (SAR), is directly proportional to AMF frequency and the magnitude of transmitting currents in the coil. Furthermore, the AMF penetrates inside tissue and induces eddy currents in electrically conducting tissues, which are proportional to the electric ﬁeld (J = 􀀛E) . The eddy currents produce Joule heating ( = 0 .5􀀁􀀛􀀁E2 ) in the normal tissue, the rate of energy transfer to the charge carriers from the applied electric ﬁelds. This Joule heating contains only the electric ﬁeld because the magnetic ﬁeld is always perpendicular to the velocity of the conduction charges, i.e., it does not produce work on moving charge. Like the SAR due to MNP, the electric ﬁeld produced by the AMF coil is directly proportional to AMF frequency and the magnitude of transmitting currents in the coil. As a result, the Joule heating is directly proportional to the square of the frequency and transmitter current magnitude. Due to the fast decay of magnetic ﬁelds from an AMF coil over distance, MNP hyperthermia treatment of deep-seated tumors requires high-magnitude transmitting currents in the coil for clinically achievable MNP distributions in the tumor. This inevitably produces signiﬁcant Joule heating in the normal tissue and becomes more complicated for a standard MNP hyperthermia approach for deep-seated tumors, such as pancreatic, prostate, liver, lung, ovarian, kidney, and colorect

FAQs

What problem does the proposed coil design address in MNP hyperthermia?

Deep-seated tumor treatment typically requires high transmitting currents, which also causes significant Joule heating in normal tissue. The proposed coil aims to maximize AMF at the target while reducing eddy-current SAR in healthy regions.

How does AMF heating relate to SAR and Joule heating in this work?

MNPs absorb electromagnetic energy and generate localized heat characterized by SAR, while AMF penetration induces eddy currents in electrically conducting tissues that produce Joule heating. The heating behavior is tied to AMF frequency and the transmitting current magnitude.

What modeling approach is used to evaluate the coil?

The study uses computational electromagnetic and temperature distributions based on a full-body, 3D human model, presenting AMF, Joule heating, SAR, and temperature results to assess safety and effectiveness.

Sep 24, 2026

Uploaded by Lucas Martin