Heating Magnetic Nanoparticles using Low Frequency Ferromagnetic Resonance

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, Lebanon NH

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary: Several cancer therapies involve inducing heat in the disease: ablation and heat released drugs are but a few of them. Many of these therapies use magnetic fields to heat magnetic nanoparticles. The most significant limitation is the trade-off between energy deposition in the nanoparticles and penetration into normal tissue. Higher frequency magnetic fields deposit more energy in the nanoparticles but have much higher absorption in normal tissue so the normal tissue is heated rather than the nanoparticles in the cancer. We propose a nanoparticle heating system that adds a very low frequency alternating magnetic field producing lower frequency pulsed RF fields to deposit more energy into the nanoparticles. The pulsed RF will be delivered at the ferromagnetic resonant frequency of the nanoparticles to deposit energy into the nanoparticles very efficiently. The very low frequency magnetic field will reduce the Larmor frequency of the ferromagnetic resonance to a frequency selected to mitigate heating of surrounding normal tissue.