Numerical study for lung microwave ablation in different thermal and electrical properties

Abstract

Microwave ablation (MWA) is a minimal invasive operation for treating lung cancer, and it has been widely used in clinic. Lung contain tracheas and bronchus, and the properties of thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and density change by variations in the lung’s internal air volume. Thus, it is difficult to control the precise formation of coagulation zones. In this paper, we propose to use finite element method (FEM) to simulate the microwave ablation for lung cancer in a simple lung model. We set the power as 10 watts for 10 s at 2.45 GHz. We built the lung model and a small bronchus was placed close to the opened-tip coaxial antenna with airflow at the rate of 3 L/min. We operated eight patterns including the collapsed and aerated lung in different thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and density to simulate. The results preliminarily showed that the electrical conductivity had the greatest influence on the microwave ablation temperature field of lung.