NEW YORK (Reuters Health), Jul 25 - Radiofrequency (RF) ablation may improve survival in patients with inoperable lung tumors, French researchers report in the August issue of Radiology.
Previous reports of the efficacy of RF ablation for lung tumors have had short follow-up periods, the authors explain, and this may be inadequate to evaluate the rate of incomplete local RF ablation.
Dr. Thierry de Baere from Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, and colleagues evaluated the local efficacy of RF ablation of lung neoplasms in 60 patients with unresectable primary (nine patients) or metastatic (51 patients) disease.
Six of the tumors increased in size during at least one year of follow-up, the authors report, and the estimated rate of incomplete local treatment at 18 months was 7% per tumor or 12% per patient.
Pneumothorax complicated 40 of the 74 RF ablation sessions, but only 17 cases required aspiration via CT-guided catheter, the results indicate.
Spirometry after the procedure showed no significant changes in FEV1 or vital capacity, the researchers note, and only 10% of procedures were followed by minor hemoptysis that did not require treatment,
Overall survival and lung disease-free survival were 71% and 34%, respectively, at 18 months, the report indicates, and there was no difference between primary and metastatic tumors.
"The overall survival ... and the 93% local efficacy rate at 18 months are very promising," the investigators conclude. "Studies are needed to compare results of RF ablation with those of other techniques, such as surgery, to determine the place of RF ablation in the therapeutic armamentarium."
Last Updated: 2006-07-25 11:02:26 -0400 (Reuters Health)
Radiology 2006;240:587-596.
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![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
