Considerations for Thermal Injury Analysis for RF Ablation Devices
Open Access
- 4 February 2010
- journal article
- Published by Bentham Science Publishers Ltd. in The Open Biomedical Engineering Journal
- Vol. 4 (1), 3-12
- https://doi.org/10.2174/1874120701004010003
Abstract
Background: : The estimation of lesion size is an integral part of treatment planning for the clinical applications of radiofrequency ablation. However, to date, studies have not directly evaluated the impact of different computational estimation techniques for predicting lesion size. In this study, we focus on three common methods used for predicting tissue injury: (1) iso-temperature contours, (2) Cumulative equivalent minutes, (3) Arrhenius based thermal injury. Methods: : We created a geometric model of a multi-tyne ablation electrode and simulated thermal and tissue injury profiles that result from three calculation methods after 15 minutes exposure to a constant RF voltage source. A hybrid finite element technique was used to calculate temperature and tissue injury. Time-temperature curves were used in the assessment of iso-temperature thresholds and the method of cumulative equivalent minutes. An Arrhenius-based formulation was used to calculate sequential and recursive thermal injury to tissues. Results: : The data demonstrate that while iso-temperature and cumulative equivalent minute contours are similar in shape, these two methodologies grossly over-estimate the amount of tissue injury when compared to recursive thermal injury calculations, which have previously been shown to correlate closely with in vitro pathologic lesion volume measurement. In addition, Arrhenius calculations that do not use a recursive algorithm result in a significant underestimation of lesion volume. The data also demonstrate that lesion width and depth are inadequate means of characterizing treatment volume for multi-tine ablation devices. Conclusions: : Recursive thermal injury remains the most physiologically relevant means of computationally estimating lesion size for hepatic tumor applications. Iso-thermal and cumulative equivalent minute approaches may produce significant errors in the estimation of lesion size.Keywords
This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Esophageal Temperature During Radiofrequency-Catheter Ablation of Left Atrium: A Three-Dimensional Computer Modeling StudyJournal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology, 2006
- A cooled intraesophageal balloon to prevent thermal injury during endocardial surgical radiofrequency ablation of the left atrium: a finite element studyPhysics in Medicine & Biology, 2005
- Lesion Size Estimator of Cardiac Radiofrequency Ablation at Different Common Locations With Different Tip TemperaturesIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2004
- Thermal-Electrical Modeling for Epicardial Atrial Radiofrequency AblationIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2004
- Hepatic radiofrequency ablation with internally cooled probes: effect of coolant temperature on lesion sizeIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2003
- Guidelines for predicting lesion size at common endocardial locations during radio-frequency ablationIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2001
- Nonlinear finite-element analysis of the role of dynamic changes in blood perfusion and optical properties in laser coagulation of tissueIEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 1996
- The dielectric properties of biological tissues: II. Measurements in the frequency range 10 Hz to 20 GHzPhysics in Medicine & Biology, 1996
- Numerical model for radio-frequency ablation of the endocardium and its experimental validationIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 1994
- TIME‐TEMPERATURE RELATIONSHIPS FOR HEAT‐INDUCED KILLING OF MAMMALIAN CELLS*Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1980