Microwave thermotherapy is currently used in clinical routines for benign prostatic hyperplasia treatments. The temperature increase is obtained using an endocavitary microwave applicator placed in the prostatic urethra. This urethral applicator after a technical modification can be placed inside the bladder in order to potentiate the effects of the treatment by chemotherapy of vesical carcinoma. This paper deals with electromagnetic studies of this new endocavitary applicator. First of all, the experimental determination of the dielectric permittivities for the propagation domain characterization is achieved in order to be used in the electromagnetic model. Compared to experimental results, these simulations obtained by the finite-difference time-domain formalism allow us to determine the electromagnetic performance of this applicator. Finally, the in vivo study realized on anesthetized dogs to determine the therapeutic protocol associating chemotherapy and thermotherapy in the treatment of the bladder cancer is presented.

No abstract

The determination of the power deposition diagram is one of the stages of the characterization of microwave applicators. This measurement is obtained by means of a mapping system in which the receiver probe can be considered as a disturbing element. The goal of this paper is to display the influence of these perturbations by modeling using the finite‐difference time‐domain (FDTD) method. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 25: 168–172, 2000.