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Objectives. To present a quantitative comparison of thermal patterns produced by the piston-in-a-baffle approach with those generated by a physiotherapy ultrasonic device and to show the dependency among thermal patterns and acoustic intensity distributions. Methods. The finite element (FE) method was used to model an ideal acoustic field and the produced thermal pattern to be compared with the experimental acoustic and temperature distributions produced by a real ultrasonic applicator. A thermal model using the measured acoustic profile as input is also presented for comparison. Temperature measurements were carried out with thermocouples inserted in muscle phantom. The insertion place of thermocouples was monitored with ultrasound imaging. Results. Modeled and measured thermal profiles were compared within the first 10 cm of depth. The ideal acoustic field did not adequately represent the measured field having different temperature profiles (errors 10% to 20%). Experimental field was concentrated near the transducer producing a region with higher temperatures, while the modeled ideal temperature was linearly distributed along the depth. The error was reduced to 7% when introducing the measured acoustic field as the input variable in the FE temperature modeling. Conclusions. Temperature distributions are strongly related to the acoustic field distributions.

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The increment of the achieved temperatures at the treatment zone indicated that the effects produced by the thermal dependence of SOS and absorption must be accounted for when planning hyperthermia treatment in order to avoid overheating undesired regions.

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