Minimally invasive thermal techniques represent promising therapeutic procedures, relying on the induction of controlled temperature change in tumor. In most cases, the local application of high temperature is provided to induce irreversible damage to the target cancer cells and consequently tumor apoptosis and coagulative necrosis. The optimal implementation of these minimally invasive treatments could show many advantages when compared to conventional surgical therapies. Among them, the reduction of the operative trauma would lead to the decrease of pain and the minimization of nonfunctional fibrotic scarring tissue formation, as well as the decrease of adhesions and wound dehiscence. Laser ablation, which refers to the exposure of biological tissues to near infrared laser light, represents an interesting thermal therapy for the potential management of cancer tissue, since it has shown encouraging results in solid tumors treatment, especially when associated with minimally invasive guidance techniques, e.g. the echo-endoscopy, suitable for specific and delicate organs, such as the pancreas. A key problem which has limited this technique in clinical practice could refer to the inaccurate monitoring of the ablation effects causing under-treatment (i.e. some cancerous cells still present) or over-treatment (i.e. excessive damage to adjacent healthy tissue or impairment of organ functionalities). Hence, solutions to optimize the real-time tissue damage control, and to make the treatment more selective, by means of dedicated tools for numerical simulation of the laser-tissue interaction and for improving the light absorbing properties of the target tissue are coveted. The development and optimization of these solutions are the missions of the LASER OPTIMAL project, which aims at establishing the following strategy: the use of biocompatible nanoparticles injected in the tumor, to enhance the selective absorption of laser light; the development of accurate and real-time heat-transfer model to simulate laser-tissue-nanoparticles interaction, predict and visualize the treatment dynamics; the development of measurement systems to monitor in real-time the laser effects on tissue, account for unpredictable physiological events and tune the settings. The action concluded with the achievement of all the project’s aims, proving the effectiveness of the strategic objectives on pre-clinical and clinical studies.
