Thermal Feedback during RFA ablation

The preferred treatment for liver malignancies is complete removal, but only 5-10% of patients with liver tumors are eligible for tumor removal due to a host of side effects that come from or cause these cancers. Radiofrequency ablation is a popular alternative when tumor removal is not an option. This method uses electrical current to heat malignant tissue to the point of death. It relies on temperature measurements of the ablated tissue to determine a stopping point. These temperature measurements provide little information as to the effectiveness and completeness of the ablation. As a result, radiofrequency ablation in the liver is plagued by high levels of recurrence after the procedure. To compensate, physicians generally overcook tissue to be sure it is destroyed, resulting in long operating room times. Fluorescence and diffuse-reflectance has been shown to accurately detect coagulation in tissue and cell viability during radiofrequency ablation. Using fluorescence spectroscopy, we seek to provide more informative and precise feedback than temperature alone. This feedback from fluorescence could assess the viability of target tumor cells, allowing physicians to have confidence in the completeness of the ablation as well as assess an appropriate stopping point for ablation.

 

 

References

 

C. R. Buttermere, R. S. Chari, C. D. Anderson, M. K. Washington, A. Mahadevan-Jansen, and W.-C. Lin, "In vivo assessment of thermal damage in the liver using optical spectroscopy," Journal of Biomedical Optics 9, 1018-1027 (2004).