| Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) is a minimally invasive technique used to destroy localized solid tumours. LITT remains an experimental procedure due to the inability to control thermal damage in the presence of dynamic tissue changes. This prompted the investigation of a monitoring and control feedback system.; A fuzzy logic controller (FLC) was developed to address tissue temperature control during LITT. The FLC receives two point temperatures as inputs, and produces a laser power level as output. It was designed to maintain tissue temperatures at target levels until a predefined thermal damage (calculated using the Arrhenius integral) was reached. The FLC was tested for its robustness in dealing with different tissue models, the presence of a simulated large vessel, an external heating source and increased maximum allowable power level. The FLC reached the system performance requirements and demonstrated the ability to control LITT treatments across all experiments. |
