Treatment planning in microwave thermal ablation: clinical gaps and recent research advances

Microwave Thermal Ablation (MTA) is a minimally invasive therapeutic technique aimed at destroying pathologic tissues through a very high temperature increase induced by the absorption of an electromagnetic field at microwave (MW) frequencies. Open problems, which are delaying MTA applications in clinical practice, are mainly linked to the extremely high temperatures, up to 120 °C, reached by the tissue close to the antenna applicator, as well as to the ability of foreseeing and controlling the shape and dimension of the thermally ablated area. Recent research was devoted to the characterization of dielectric, thermal, and physical properties of the tissue looking at their changes with the increasing temperature, looking for possible developments of reliable, automatic, and personalized treatment planning. In this paper, a review of the recently obtained results as well as new un-published data will be presented and discussed.