A digital twin for microwave liver treatment replanning

Microwave ablation (MWA) modeling and simulation bear great potential for locoregional treatment of liver tumors. However, accurately positioning the antenna according to a planned orientation/location is technically challenging. In cases of misplacement, maintaining the original plan may cause incomplete ablation, while repositioning the antenna may induce tumor seeding. In this work, we propose (i) a digital twin of MWA that simulates ablation outcomes and (ii) an optimizer that suggests corrections to MWA parameters without antenna reinsertion, while ensuring complete tumor ablations.

A finite element scheme was used to solve the coupled microwave propagation and heat transfer equations governing MWA, with personalized dielectric and thermal properties determined from preoperative CT and MRI images. We then proposed an optimization algorithm able to adjust power input, ablation duration, and antenna position to correct for antenna misplacement.

The simulator and optimizer were evaluated against in vivo swine experimental data. Three ablations were performed in liver regions with varying vascularization. The simulations accurately predicted the ablation zones despite the presence of large vessels near the antenna, achieving Dice scores of 0.82, 0.81, and 0.79. In the case of replanning scenarios, our optimizer predicted new parameter sets that led to Dice scores of 0.83, 0.83, 0.80, a corresponding improvement of 20.3%, 40.7%, and 48.1% in average over the initial ablation result.

This paper is the first to address intra-operative replanning of thermal ablation therapy. It demonstrates that optimal ablation results can be achieved without requiring antenna reinsertion by optimizing specific ablation parameters.