Advancements in Microwave Imaging for Thermal Ablation Treatments Monitoring

Microwave thermal ablation (MTA) is one of the most effective minimally invasive ways to treat cancer. In this procedure, a percutaneous antenna is inserted within the tumor to induce an irreversible thermal injury in the target tissue [1]. For the treatment to be successful and safe, it is needed to monitor the temperature in the target area, to ensure full coverage of the tumor and avoid damaging healthy tissue. Due to the limitations of existing imaging and sensing modalities, MTA currently lacks an effective monitoring technique, and the real-time assessment of the treatment basically relies on the clinician’s experience. Microwave imaging (MWI) is gaining a significant attention as an effective and safe technique for the diagnosis of several diseases. Since the electric properties of heated tissues with MTA change significantly, depending on the achieved temperature [1], MWI has been recently proposed to monitor thermal therapies, thanks to its potential to provide real-time information on the treated area [2]. This contribution reports on the ongoing advancements on this topic, presenting the numerical analysis of a low complexity MWI device based on an array of eight antennas showing the results when imaging the ablated tissue during a simulated treatment