Alternative methods for local ablation-interventional pulmonology: a narrative review

To discuss and summarise the background and recent advances in the approach to bronchoscopic ablative therapies for lung cancer, focusing on focal parenchymal lesions.

This series focusses on the challenges highlighted by increasing recognition of the prognostically more favourable oligometastatic disease rather than the more frequent, but prognostically poor, high tumour burden metastatic disease. While surgery, stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), and trans-thoracic percutaneous ablative techniques such as microwave (MWA) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA) are well recognised options for selected cases of pulmonary oligometastasis, bronchoscopic approaches to pulmonary tumour ablation are becoming realistic alternatives. An underlying tenet driving research and implementation in this domain is that percutaneous ablative techniques are obliged to traverse the pleura leading to a high rate of pneumothorax, and risks also goes up for peri-vascular lesions. Historically low yield bronchoscopic targeting of isolated peripheral tumors have significantly improved by incorporating multi-modality high resolution imaging and processing, including navigation planning and real-time image guidances (ultrasound, electromagnetic navigation, cone-beam CT). Combining advanced image guidance with ablative technology adaptations for bronchoscopic delivery opens up the options for high dose local ablative therapies that may reduce transthoracic complications and provide palliative to curative options for limited stage primary and oligometastatic diseases.

We conduct a narrative review of the literature summarizing the history of bronchoscopic tumor ablation approaches, technical details including biologic rational for their uses, and current evidence for each modality, as well as investigations into future applications. Because of the relative paucity of prospective studies, we have been very inclusive in our inclusion of experiences from the published clinical databases.

Whilst surgical resection and SBRT remain the current mainstay of curative therapies for peripheral cancers, in the foreseeable future, developments and further research will see bronchoscopic ablative therapies become viable lung sparing alternatives in those deemed suitable. The future is bright.