Abstract

Purpose: To settle the most important clinical and radiological selection criteria for percutaneous ablation in patients with pulmonary tumours.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of pulmonary thermal ablations performed in our Centre with special "focus" on clinical and radiological selection criteria for thermal ablation. The criteria employed in our Centre were then compared with those of 24 studies chosen from Literature that fit the issue and described their patient selection criteria for lung tumours thermal ablation.

Results: From May 2008 until May 2011, thermal ablation was indicated as an alternative to conventional treatment for 32 patients (20 males e 12 females) with NSCLC in different stages, with medium age of 71 years old (range 46 – 82). Inoperability was a condition established for all patients, for their clinical conditions, especially poor lung function, for the disease extension, as a controlled metastasis, and/or for their diameter and localization, as lesions in proximity to heart, large vessels and trachea.

Conclusion: Thermal ablation is a rational alternative for conventional therapy in an adequately selected group of patients. A randomized controlled study with a control group submitted to conventional therapies to define with precision the candidable patients to thermal ablative therapy would be necessary.

Keywords: selection criteria, lung malignancies, ablation techniques, microwave ablation, radiofrequency ablation, pulmonary cancer, therapy.