Radiofrequency tumor ablation with COMSOL (tutorial)

Radiofrequency ablation modeled with COMSOL

Tissue ablation is the destruction of diseased (pathologic) tissue with the aim to cure a disease. One way to achieve this is via thermal methods (i.e. thermal ablation), by either heating or cooling to temperatures lethal to cells (typically below -40 °C (-40 °F), or above 50 °C (122 °F)). A number of different physical principles can be employed for heating and cooling tissue, such as radiofrequency (RF) electric current, microwaves, laser, ultrasound, and cryogenic cooling. In our lab we perform research on ablation using heating by RF currents, or cryogenic freezing.

In this tutorial I am using COMSOL to simulate radiofrequency tumor ablation for 15 minutes. Following will be covered in the tutorial:

• Radiofrequency heating via single cool-tip electrode
• Automatic Voltage PI-control for constant heating temperature in tissue
• Arrhenius tissue damage model
• Bioheat equation / perfusion decrease due to tissue damage

Download the tutorial (pdf): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41416749/COMSOL/COMSOL%20RFA%20%2B%20ARRH%20-%20Tutorial.pdf