An in vitro phantom study to quantify the efficacy of multi-tine electrode in attaining large size coagulation volume during RFA

Abstract

The present study aims at evaluating the efficacy of commercially available RITA’s StarBurst ® XL multi-tine electrode in attaining large size coagulation volumes (≥3, cm in diameter) during radiofrequency ablation (RFA) application. In vitro studies have been conducted on the cylindrical shaped polyacrylamide based tissue-mimicking phantom gels utilizing different active lengths of the multi-tine electrode, viz., 2 cm, 3 cm, 4 cm and 5, cm. A temperature-controlled RFA has been performed at a target tip temperature of 95 °C for 5, min. The variations in the power supply, the target tip temperature and the size of coagulation volume have been reported for different active lengths of the multi-tine electrode. The study revealed that the increase in active length of the multi-tine electrode results in more energy deposition and consequent rise in the coagulation volume during RFA procedure. Further, a simplified novel statistical correlation between the coagulation volume and active length of the multi-tine electrode has been proposed.