Research
Intracranial air expansion during flight
Intracranial air may exist inside patients who have recently underwent cranial surgery. The presence of intracranial air can be hazardous to the patient during air travel, as the change in the ambient (cabin) pressure can cause expansion of the intracranial air. This expansion can result in the compression of the brain that ultimately increases the intracranial pressure. Not much is known about the effects of intracranial air expansion due to the changes in the ambient pressure. Our group is dedicated to investigate this in a laboratory setting by mimicking ambient pressure changes and their effects of intracranial air expansion.
Thermochemical ablation
Here at BEMS, we explore alternative thermal ablation treatment and their feasibility as a cancer treatment technique. We are currently developing a computational framework to simulate the thermochemical processes during thermochemical ablation. The framework describes the flow of acid and base inside the tissue, their neutralisation and the subsequent release of exothermic heat that can be used to thermally destroy biological tissues. An accompanying experimental study will also be carried out, where the results can be used to provide further qualitative understanding of the physical changes inside the tissue during thermochemical ablation.
Revisiting the single probe bipolar radiofrequency ablation
Recently, there have been calls for RFA to be implemented in the bipolar mode for cancer treatment due to the benefits it offers over the monopolar mode. These include the ability to prevent skin burns at the grounding pad and to avoid tumour track seeding. The usage of bipolar RFA in clinical practice remains uncommon however, as not many research studies have been carried out on bipolar RFA. As such, there is still uncertainty in understanding the effects of the different RF probe configurations on the treatment outcome of RFA. We demonstrated that the electrode lengths have a strong influence on the mechanics of bipolar RFA. The information obtained here may lead to further optimization of the system for subsequent uses in the hospitals.
Virtual patient: Application in hospital treatment
Model-based methods potentially offer non-invasive and cost-effective treatment in hospital care. In particular, mathematical models of the patient's physiological system can be developed to describe the patient's condition. For example, retrospective data of mechanically ventilated respiratory failure patient with a virtual patient model can be used for investigation of the effectiveness of a model-based treatment. The virtual patient model potentially reduces the need for multiple clinical trials that are exhaustive for testing the performance of medical treatment.
