Radiofrequency ablation in palliative supportive care: early clinical experience

We report our early experience with radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in palliative supportive care. The medical files of eight patients were retrospectively reviewed. Four patients had a renal tumor, and nephrectomy was contraindicated in each patient since they had a poor general status. The fifth patient had a local recurrence in the site of a previous nephrectomy with a pancreatic tail extension, and surgical resection was contraindicated because of abdominal carcinomatosis. Two other patients had bone metastasis, one with a painful metastasis of mammary carcinoma in the head of the humerus resistant to radiotherapy, and the other with metastasis of the tibia of cutaneous melanoma. The last patient had a local recurrence of a sacral chordoma. Management, outcomes and complications were evaluated with 13.1+/-0.3 months follow-up. All five patients with renal carcinomas did not have local recurrence. The two patients treated for bone metastases had no pain 8 weeks after RFA and remained stable over time. One complication occurred 2 months after using the procedure to treat the chordoma, and this patient was hospitalized for a fistula between the sigmoid and hypogastric artery false aneurysm and subsequently died. In conclusion, RFA can be a safe and useful adjuvant treatment in supportive care or unresponsive cancer pain patients. However, the destruction of tumoral tissues in contact with sensitive structures using RFA should be done with caution due to potentially severe complications.