CT_ Guided Percutaneous Microwave Ablation in Treatment of Pulmonary Malignancies

Currently , Surgery is one of the curative treatment option for primary lung cancer but most patients are either diagnosed at an advanced stage or are unfit for surgery due to medical co_morbidities or poor underlying lung reserve , less than a third of all lung cancer patients can undergo surgical resection .

Lung metastasectomy is considered a therapeutic option increasing the survival rate for patients of pulmonary metastases but only 25%30% of patients benefits from lung metastasectomy due to multiplicity of pulmonary nodules or medical co morbidities .

In spite of a significant improvement of lung cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy in recent years , the overall clinical outcome is less than satisfactory compared with that brought by surgical resection .Thus , it is urgent to provide a method which is more effective than chemotherapy and radiotherapy and nearly effective as the surgical treatment for the patients who are not eligible for surgery.

Local thermal ablation therapy of the tumor is the focus of recent research in the past decades .This method is to deliver specific energy into the tumor tissue under the guidance of image technology , which make the local tissue quickly reach 60°C where an irreversible coagulative necrosis happens leading to necrosis of tumor cells .

CT_guided Microwave ablation is a minimally invasive technique that may be an alternative treatment option for management of lung cancer in patients who are not candidate for surgery .This method not only kill the insitu lung cancer cells , but also protect lung cancer tissue .It can produce large volumes of cellular necrosis with reduced procedure time , can use multiple antennae and can be used in lesions with cystic component and/or in proximity to vascular structures.