Towards a Multiphysics Model for Tumor Response to Combined-Hyperthermia-Radiotherapy Treatment

We develop a multiphysics-based model to predict the response of localized tumors to combined-hyperthermia-radiotherapy (CHR) treatment. This procedure combines hyperthermia (tumor heating) with standard radiotherapy to improve efficacy of the overall treatment. In addition to directly killing tumor cells, tumor heating amends several parameters within the tumor microenvironment. This leads to radiosensitization, which improves the performance of radiotherapy while reducing the side-effects of excess radiation in the surrounding normal tissue. Existing tools to model this kind of treatment consider each of the physics separately. The model presented in this paper accounts for the synergy between hyperthermia and radiotherapy providing a more realistic and holistic approach to simulate CHR treatment. Our model couples radiation transport and heat-transfer with cell population dynamics.