Surgery – Magnetic field applied to body for therapy – Electromagnetic coil
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-12
2003-05-06
Winakur, Eric F. (Department: 3736)
Surgery
Magnetic field applied to body for therapy
Electromagnetic coil
Reexamination Certificate
active
06558311
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates to the treatment of at least a portion of a biological body with magnetic fields and to an apparatus for treatment with magnetic fields.
Apparatuses are known which use pulsed or modulated magnetic fields to produce a positive influence on biological tissue. In this case, as can be found, for example, in DE 40 26 173, the tissue is subjected to a constant magnetic field and to a magnetic alternating field superimposed on it. During use of such appliances, it has been possible to show that a positive therapeutic effect can be achieved by subjecting biological tissue to magnetic fields and/or to magnetic alternating fields. The healing affect of such magnetic-field therapy appliances covers, inter alia, the alleviation of osteoporosis or the consequences of a stroke. In this case, it appears probable that the magnetic fields which are applied promote transport and/or metabolic processes which lead to a positive therapeutic effect. Until now, it has been assumed that the process described above is caused by the stimulation and/or the absorption of ion cyclotron resonances (ICR) in a biological body. However, in some circumstances, this appears to be questionable since cyclotron resonances in general occur only in free particles, for example in a vacuum or in the case of electrons in the conduction band of a semiconductor. Furthermore, a simple calculation can also be used to show that a cyclotron movement would take place on a circular path whose radius is actually greater than the average diameter of a cross section of a human body. This means that an explanation of the energy transfer based on cyclotron resonance may be questionable, particularly in the case of solid tissue. In practice, it has been found that, with the existing magnetic-field therapy appliances, it is often necessary to carry out a number of treatments initially in order in this way to define the frequencies for the subsequent treatments which cause the desired positive effect. This procedure means that therapy with magnetic fields is very complex and imprecise and only exceptionally, if at all, allows a deliberate procedure for complaints, which can be defined and located, in solid or liquid material.
The invention is thus based on the object of providing an apparatus for treatment with magnetic fields, which avoids the said disadvantages and which, in particular, for the first time allows treatments with magnetic fields to be carried out in all biological materials in a specific and reproducible manner, irrespective of whether any ionic particles are present.
This object is achieved in a very highly surprising manner just by the features of claim
1
. Advantageous and preferred developments are the subject matter of the dependent claims.
In comparison to known solution attempts, the apparatus according to the invention is based on the idea that the positive treatment effect can be achieved by producing repeated spin resonance sequences.
One preferred embodiment of the invention comprises, in a particularly advantageous manner, a magnet for producing an essentially constant magnetic field, and a coil system for producing a magnetic alternating field at right angles to the magnetic field of the magnet, with this, in a manner which is obvious to a person skilled in the art, corresponding to a classical arrangement for carrying out spin resonance. Furthermore, an advantageous development of the apparatus according to the invention also has control electronics for actuation of the magnet and the coil system, which control electronics can be adjusted such that nuclear spin resonance is produced in a biological body introduced between the magnets described above. In this case, in a highly advantageous manner, the control device has an associated device by means of which parameters or intervals can be defined over a fixed treatment time period, based on which the apparatus according to the invention repeats the nuclear spin resonance process or nuclear spin absorption process controlled by the control electronics.
In the context of the invention, it has been found to be very highly advantageous if the repetition rate, that is to say the time sequence of the nuclear spin resonance is carried out, is determined as a function of the spin-lattice relaxation time T
1
. The spin-lattice relaxation time describes, in the form of a time constant, the exponential or logarithmic build-up of macroscopic magnetization in the direction of a magnetic field. The resonant injection of a magnetic alternating field at right angles to the said magnetic field reduces the magnetization in the direction of the magnetic field. If the resonant injection is stopped after this decrease in the magnetization, then the magnetization in the magnetic field direction builds up once again, in which case it can be assumed on the basis of the logarithmic growth that the magnetization reaches approximately 95% of the initial value of the magnetization once again after a time of approximately 3T
1
. This means that, after a time interval of 3T
1
, a new effective energy transfer can be achieved by spin resonance. The definition of the spin resonance repetition rate to be three times the spin-lattice relaxation time of the body or body part to be treated is thus ideally typical for the subject matter of the present invention, but is not essential, so that other frequencies are also feasible. Furthermore, this definition allows a positive biological effect to be achieved immediately. In contrast to the prior art, it is no longer necessary to carry out a number of comprehensive initial treatments to determine, more or less objectively, the frequency which achieves a biological effect. Since the spin resonance can be used both for gaseous molecules and for molecules which are in solution and for molecules which are incorporated in solid form, the corresponding spin-lattice relaxation times, or those required for the treatment, are also advantageously accessible by measurements.
In consequence, in a further development of the invention, the apparatus for treatment with magnetic fields comprises a further coil system. The axis of this coil system is preferably at right angles to both the axis of the magnet and the axis of the first coil system. In one preferred embodiment, this coil system is used as a detection coil system. In this case, before the start of the treatment, the spin-lattice relaxation time T
1
can be determined in a very highly advantageous manner using the detection coils, for example in the course of a spin-echo measurement, and, as already described above, this allows the repetition rate to be defined.
Furthermore, in a positive further refinement of the subject matter of the invention, this subject matter has an associated evaluation device which allows the required parameter T
1
to be determined from the spin-echo measurement described above. If, furthermore, the already described detection coil is also provided, then the repetition rate for the spin resonance can be obtained directly and entirely objectively, locally, for the body to be treated or body part to be treated. This means that there is no longer any need for treatment appointments which serve only to find a possible “effective frequency”. However, in a simplified embodiment in this case, this device can also advantageously be used just to record and to provide already defined values, or values which can be found in the references, for T
1
or for other parameters such as the magnetic field B
0
, the alternating field B
1
, the Larmor frequency f
0
or other appropriate parameters, in order in this way to define the conditions in which the treatment can be carried out by means of spin resonance.
It is also very highly advantageous if the control electronics comprise a measurement device which is able to use, for example, installed detection coils such as those already described above to measure the energy which is emitted to the tissue or the body part to be treated in the course of a sequence of nuclear spin resonances. This thus allows a relationship
Veniaminov Nikita
Winakur Eric F.
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