At this year’s meeting of the Society for Thermal Medicine, there was a special session on the use of focused ultrasound for hyperthermia, which is being used to enhance the delivery of anticancer drugs and the efficacy of other therapies like radiation. Hyperthermia to induce an anticancer immune response was also a hot topic this year, with two sessions devoted to immune-based treatments. Novel nanoparticle-based combination therapies and veterinary applications for hyperthermia further emphasized the broad range of uses for this exciting technology.

Abstracts Presented

Histological evaluation of cellular changes in healthy bone after MRI guided High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound: an acute and chronic study in pigs
Karolina Piorkowska*¹, Gino R. Somers^2,3, James Drake^1,4, Adam C Waspe^1,5
1Centre for Image Guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention, The Hospital for Sick Children, Canada, ²Department of Pathology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Canada, ³Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Canada, ⁴Department of Neurosurgery, The Hospital for Sick Children, Canada, ⁵Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Canada
Sunday, April 30th: Biology Session II: Mechanisms and Agents of Cell Stress to Enhance Therapy - 4:00pm-6:00pm

Real-time Spatiotemporal Control of Transcranial Focused Ultrasound In Vivo
Dalong Liu^1,2, Kyle Schaible¹, Walter Low¹, Emad Ebbini^*1
1University of Minnesota Twin Cities, USA, ²Siemens Health Solutions, USA
Tuesday, May 2nd: Physics Session III - Therapeutic Opportunities with Ultrasound and other Energy Sources - 9:30am-11:30am

Targetability of Adult Soft Tissue Sarcomas for Mild Hyperthermia Treatments Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging-guided High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound
Jochen Cammin^*1, Satya V.V.N. Kothapalli², Hong Chen², Ari Partanen³, Imran Zoberi¹, Michael B. Altman^1
1Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Radiation Oncology, USA, ²Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Biomedical Engineering, USA, ³Philips, Clinical Science MR Therapy, USA
Monday, May 1st: Clinical Hyperthermia Session II - New Opportunities for Oncology - 9:30am-11:30am

Effect of hyperthermia duration on MR-HIFU mediated doxorubicin delivery from thermosensitive liposomes: In vivo biodistribution and comparison with numerical models
Robert Staruch^1,2, Sumbul Shaikh1, Chenchen Bing¹, Joris Nofiele¹, Debra Szczepanski¹, Yu Hong¹, Michelle Wodzak¹, Dieter Haemmerich³, Noelle Williams¹, Theodore Laetsch^*1,4, Rajiv Chopra^1
1UT Southwestern Medical Center, USA, ²Philips Research, USA, ³Medical University of South Carolina, USA, ⁴Children's Health, USA
Tuesday, May 2nd: Nanotechnology Session IV - In vivo Preclinical Models of Magnetic Hyperthermia - 9:30am-11:30am

Identification of clinical MR-HIFU hyperthermia treatment sites through validation of MR thermometry accuracy and precision in healthy volunteers
Satya V.V.N. Kothapalli^*1, Michael B. Altman², Ari Partanen³, Lifei Zhu¹, Galen Cheng¹, H. Michael Gach², Imran Zoberi², Dennis Hallahan², William Straube², Hong Chen^1,2
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, USA, ²Department of Radiation Oncology, Washington University in St. Louis, USA, ³Clinical Science MR Therapy, Philips, USA
Sunday, April 30th: Physics Session I: Efforts to improve QA for clinical hyperthermia - 9:30am-11:30am

Modeling and Measurement of Heating Patterns of a HIFU Applicator: preliminary results
Raquel Martinez^*1, A. Ramos², A. Vera³, L. Leija^3
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnic University of Chiapas, Mexico, ²Group of R&D “Systems and Ultrasonic Technologies”, Institute for Physical and Information Technologies, CSIC, Spain, ³Electrical Engineering Department, Bioelectronics Section, CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico
Sunday, April 30th: Poster Session & Competition - 6:00pm-8:00pm

MR-guided HIFU-induced hyperthermia for local drug delivery in breast cancer: MR thermometry evaluation and preclinical validation
Roel Deckers^*1, Charles Mougenot¹, Josanne S. De Maar¹, Manon N.G. Braat¹, Britt B.M. Suelmann², Sabine C. Linn³, Elsken Van der Wall², Clemens Bos¹, Lambertus W. Bartels¹, Chrit T.W. Moonen^1
1Imaging Division, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands, ²Cancer Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands, ³Pathology, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands
Tuesday, May 2nd: Physics Session III - Therapeutic Opportunities with Ultrasound and other Energy Sources - 9:30am-11:30am

Phase I trial of MR-HIFU mild hyperthermia with radiation and chemotherapy for recurrent rectal cancer: second patient
William Chu^*1,3, Samuel Pichardo^5,6, Yuexi Huang^1,2, Robert Staruch⁴, Ari Partanen⁵, Merrylee McGuffin¹, Gregory Czarnota^1,2, Kullervo Hynynen^2,3
1Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Canada, ²Sunnybrook Research Institute, Canada, ³University of Toronto, Canada, ⁴Philips Research, USA, ⁵Philips Healthcare, USA, ⁶Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, Canada, ⁷Lakehead University, Canada
Monday, May 1st: Clinical Hyperthermia Session III - Case Studies and Non-oncology Applications - 1:30pm-3:00pm

Tissue Fractionation using Microsecond-Long HIFU Pulses on a Clinical MR-HIFU System
Avinash Eranki^*1,2, Navid Farr², Ari Partanen³, Karun V.Sharma¹, Christoper T.Rossi¹, AeRang Kim¹, David Woods², Pavel Yarmolenko¹, Peter C.W.Kim¹, Bradford J.Wood^2
1Childrens National Health System, USA, ²National Institutes of Health, USA, ³Philips, USA
Sunday, April 30th: Poster Session & Competition - 6:00pm-8:00pm

Effect of hyperthermia duration on MR-HIFU mediated doxorubicin delivery from thermosensitive liposomes: In vivo biodistribution and comparison with numerical models
Robert Staruch^1,2, Sumbul Shaikh¹, Chenchen Bing¹, Joris Nofiele¹, Debra Szczepanski¹, Yu Hong¹, Michelle Wodzak¹, Dieter Haemmerich³, Noelle Williams¹, Theodore Laetsch^*1,4, Rajiv Chopra^1
1UT Southwestern Medical Center, USA, ²Philips Research, USA, ³Medical University of South Carolina, USA, ⁴Children's Health, USA
Tuesday, May 2nd: Nanotechnology Session IV - In vivo Preclinical Models of Magnetic Hyperthermia - 9:30am-11:30am

See the 2017 STM Meeting Website >