Clinical application of optical and electromagnetic navigation system in CT-guided radiofrequency ablation of lung metastases

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the clinical value of CT-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary metastases under optical and electromagnetic navigation.

Methods

Data on CT-guided radiofrequency ablation treatment of 93 metastatic lung lesions in 70 patients were retrospectively analyzed. There were 46 males and 24 females with a median age of 60.0 years (16–85 years). All lesions were ≤3cm in diameter. 57 patients were treated with 17 G radiofrequency ablation needle puncture directly ablated the lesion without biopsy, and 13 patients were treated with 16 G coaxial needle biopsy followed by radiofrequency ablation. There were 25 cases in the optical navigation group, 25 in the electromagnetic navigation group, and 20 in the non-navigation group. The navigation group was performed by primary interventionalists with less than 5 years of experience, and the non-navigation group was performed by interventionalists with more than 5 years of experience.

Result

All operations were successfully performed. There was no statistically significant difference in the overall distribution of follow-up results among the optical, electromagnetic, and no navigation groups. Complete ablation was achieved in 84 lesions (90.3%). 7 lesions showed incomplete ablation and were completely inactivated after repeat ablation. 2 lesions progressed locally, and one of them still had an increasing trend after repeat ablation. No serious complications occurred after the operation.

Conclusions

Treatment with optical and electromagnetic navigation systems by less experienced operators has similar outcomes to traditional treatments without navigational systems performed by more experienced operators.

Keywords:

• Optical navigation
• electromagnetic navigation
• lung metastases
• computed tomography
• radiofrequency ablation

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Chinese PLA General Hospital (No: S2023-694-01) and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or similar ethical standards.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request. The authors will provide the original data without reservation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Military Equipment Comprehensive Research project of China under Grant [No. LB2022B010100].