Radiofrequency ablation for treating malignant tumors to the lungs

Starting in 2000, a reasonable body of data on the use of RF ablation in lung tumors has evolved. Unfortunately, the quality of the data is limited with only very few prospective studies and often inhomogeneous patient populations. There is only very limited data on other thermal ablation techniques for treating lung lesions. Thus, interpretation of available data on pulmonary ablation is difficult. The following sections are designed to provide an overview on the available clinical data, based on a selective literature review. Experimental data and studies including mixed populations with primary lung cancer and metastatic disease were excluded. As the only prospective trials cover a mixture of primary and secondary lung malignancies, they were excluded from the summary tables [1, 2].