HEAT: High-Efficiency Simulation for Thermal Ablation Therapy

jonas.mht.private@gmail.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

Percutaneous thermal ablation is increasingly popular but still suffers from a complex preoperative planning, especially regarding the prediction of the ablation zone. We propose HEAT (High-Efficiency simulation for thermal Ablation Therapy), a novel GPU-accelerated simulation framework for thermal ablation that enables real-time planning.

This work was published in the International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS) in 2025.

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Motivation

Thermal ablation is a minimally invasive cancer treatment that uses heat to destroy tumors. However, accurately predicting the ablation zone (the area that will be destroyed) remains challenging. Traditional simulation methods are too slow for clinical use, taking minutes or even hours to compute.

Approach

HEAT leverages GPU acceleration to achieve real-time performance:

Fast computation: Results in under 1 second for interactive planning
GPU parallelization: Efficient handling of 3D volumetric data
Physical accuracy: Implements realistic heat transfer models including:
- Pennes bioheat equation
- Perfusion effects
- Heat sink effects near blood vessels

Results

The system demonstrates:

Real-time performance: Sub-second simulation times
Clinical accuracy: Validated against experimental data
Practical utility: Integrates with existing surgical planning workflows

Authors

Jonas Mehtali (Lead Author)
Juan Verde
Caroline Essert

ICube Laboratory, University of Strasbourg

This work builds on my research internship in 2024 at ICube/IHU Strasbourg, which focused on networked computing for thermal ablation simulation. The HEAT project represents a significant advancement in computational efficiency and clinical applicability.