Percutaneous Thermal Ablation in Treatment of Lung Cancer

The incidence of lung cancer is one of the highest in the world. In Egypt lung cancer is the third common cancer and the most lethal malignancy in egypt . Where it is responsible for 16.9% and 3.8% of all cancers in males and females respectively.

Surgery is universally accepted as the best choice of therapy in stage 1 non small lung cancer , this is based on favourable outcomes observed in patients who have been surgically treated. However surgery is often high risk procedure because of several comorbidities affecting this cohort of patients.

Therefore non invasive local treatment that makes it possible to avoid resection of functioning parenchyma or prolonged general anaethesia representa key point in management of patients who are not eligible for surgery.

The ablative technologies utilize several sources of energy and different devices to damage targeted tissue using either radio frequency ablation (RFA) or microwave ablation (MWA) which are mini-invasive procedures as they deliver energy to tumour through single or multiple percutaneous needles.

The goal of TA is to induce targeted tissue damage by heating cells to +60 celsius to obtain a complete necrosis of tumour and surrounding tissue, TA may be performed under either conscious sedation or general anaethesia to avoid pain caused by needle insertion and tissue heating.