Conformal RF Ablation to Reduce “Dead Region” With Adjuvant Injection of Magnetic Micro/Nano Particles: Feasibility Study

Radiofrequency (RF) ablation is a minimally invasive technique for tumor treatment. Intended benefits of oncological RF ablation include the availability of tumor treatment in nonsurgical candidate, minimal risk to patient, reduced morbidity and shorter recovery period compared with those after conventional surgery, and the potential for treatment on an outpatient basis. RF ablation, by producing heat energy that raises the temperature of the target tissue to a degree sufficient to cause thermally mediated coagulation necrosis, has been shown to be remarkably effective for thermal ablation of small tumors. Although RF hyperthermia has been successful in ablating small tumors, further optimization of the ablation technique is required to induce the larger volumes of coagulation that are necessary to treat larger tumors. In addition, due to the extremely irregular shape of tumor in clinics, the conventional RF ablation technique is hard to produce a conformal lesion to exactly enwrap the tumor as could as possible. This may lead to “dead region” within the area between RF probes and thus a failed treatment. To obtain a conformal treatment of complex tumor, strategies to flexibly control the size and shape of the ablated zone are desired.