Numerical study of the effect of blood vessel on the microwave ablation shape.

The existence of large blood vessels seriously impacts the results of microwave ablation on heat transfer of surrounding tissue, and the research of influences about large blood vessels could be essential and significant. The temperature distribution in the tissue was analyzed with a microwave heating source by finite element method. The model, where the blood vessel is parallel to antenna, has different distances from antenna to blood vessel. As distance was greater than 20mm, the effect of blood vessel that was parallel to antenna was ignored and the ablation area was elliptical-like. When distance was less than 10mm, the part of asymmetrical coagulated area was on the right side of blood vessel. Therefore, the temperature contour by different conditions could provide numerical references, which is whether to block blood vessel or not, to achieve the aim of guiding the clinical practice, according to the locations of tumor and blood vessel.