Ablation Planning Software for Optimizing Treatment: Challenges, Techniques, and Applications.

Overview

Percutaneous ablation can deliver effective anticancer therapy with minimal side effects; however, undertreatment can lead to disease recurrence and overtreatment can lead to unnecessary complications. Ablation planning software can support the procedure during the planning, treatment, and follow-up phases. In this review, 2 examples of microwave ablation software are described with attention to how the software can influence procedural choices. In the future, ablation software will entail larger source datasets and more refined algorithms to better model the in vivo ablation zone. Moreover, ablation simulation has the potential to augment clinical care beyond the interventional suite, such as procedural demonstration for patients, clinical consultation with referring providers, documentation for the medical record, and educational simulation for trainees.