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Updated: Jun 23, 2026
Thermal Ablation for the Treatment of Abdominal Tumors
Published on: March 7, 2011
Limitation for performing ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation of small renal masses
Byung Kwan Park1, Chan Kyo Kim, Han Yong Choi
1The Department of Radiology and Center for Imaging Science, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 135-710 Seoul, Republic of Korea. rapark@skku.edu
Purpose:
To evaluate which factor is involved in limiting ultrasound (US)-guided radiofrequency (RF) ablation of small renal masses.
Materials And Methods:
Twenty-five patients with 31 renal masses underwent image-guided RF ablation. If a lesion was visible on US, US-guided RF ablation was performed. If a lesion was invisible on US or if the lesion was incompletely ablated or recurred following US-guided RF ablation, CT-guided RF ablation was performed. We analyzed the various factors which were involved in US-guided RF ablation.
Results:
Of 31 masses, thirteen were US-visible lesions and underwent US-guided RF ablation whereas thirteen were US-invisible lesions and thus underwent CT-guided RF ablation. The remaining five lesions were US-visible but needed additional CT-guided RF ablation, due to incomplete ablation (n=4) or recurrence (n=1); these renal masses (3.1+/-1.0 cm) were significantly larger than those (1.8+/-0.6 cm) ablated with US alone (p<0.05). Steam bubbles (4.4 cm+/-0.7 cm) of the masses requiring additional CT-guided RF ablation were significantly larger than those (2.9 cm+/-0.7 cm) of the tumors completely ablated with US alone in size (p<0.05).
Conclusions:
US-invisibility, lesion size, and steam bubbles may limit to perform US-guided RF ablation of small renal masses.
