A
thermal treatment system including a heat applying element for generating thermal doses for ablating a target
mass in a patient, a controller for controlling
thermal dose properties of the heat applying element, an imager for providing preliminary images of the target
mass and thermal images during the treatment, and a planner for automatically constructing a
treatment plan, comprising a series of treatment sites that are each represented by a set of
thermal dose properties. The planner automatically constructs the
treatment plan based on input information including one or more of a volume of the target
mass, a distance from a
skin surface of the patient to the target mass, a set of default
thermal dose prediction properties, a set of user specified thermal
dose prediction properties, physical properties of the heat applying elements, and images provided by the imager. The default thermal
dose prediction properties are preferably based on a type of clinical application and include at least one of thermal
dose threshold, thermal
dose prediction algorithm, maximum allowed energy for each thermal dose, thermal dose duration for each treatment site,
cooling time between thermal doses, and electrical properties for the heat applying element. The user specified thermal
dose prediction properties preferably include at least one or more of overrides for any default thermal
dose prediction properties, treatment site
grid density; and thermal dose prediction properties not specified as default thermal dose prediction properties from the group comprised of thermal dose threshold, thermal dose prediction
algorithm, maximum allowed energy for each thermal dose, thermal dose duration for each treatment site
cooling time between thermal doses, and electrical properties for the heat applying element.