Role of Microwave Ablation in Treatment of Lung Tumors

Image-guided percutaneous thermal ablation is a common excellent alternative option for treatment of non- operable primary and metastatic lung tumors. These techniques are based on heating effect on the tissue around a percutaneous applicator causing coagulative necrosis of the tumor cells. Microwave Ablation (MWA) is a commonly used locoregional interventional procedure in treatment of pulmonary tumors with satisfactory outcome. Microwave ablation therapy is a safe effective minimally invasive tool for treatment of pulmonary tumors and considered a useful option in the multimodality treatment of patients with in-operable lungcancer.Compared to RFA, it creates larger, more spherical and less time-consuming ablation zones and is less susceptible to the heat sink effect with same complication rate. The efficacy of treat- ment is determined mainly by preablation tumor size and location in relation to the hilum.