Non-Invasive in vivo Loss Tangent Imaging: Thermal Sensitivity Estimation at the Larmor Frequency

Narae Choi¹, Joonsung Lee¹, Min-Oh Kim¹, Jaewook Shin¹, Dong-Hyun Kim¹

Medical thermotherapy uses thermal sensitivity difference between tumor and normal tissue. Some factors to determine the thermal sensitivity are the electrical tissue properties. The loss tangent is a parameter of a dielectric material. The loss tangent is a measure of the electromagnetic wave energy transformed to heat energy. It is generally assumed that the thermal sensitivity used in hyperthermia treatment has a positive tendency to the loss tangent hence its knowledge can be beneficial. We propose a nondestructive loss tangent imaging method using MREPT approach, which is a non-invasive estimation method of probing electrical properties.