No-touch ablation technique

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No-touch microwave or radiofrequency ablation techniques refer to approaches where the probes are placed at multiple oblique sites tangential and adjacent to the targeted tumor (c.f. probe placement centrally within the tumor).

Indications

For general indications of thermal ablation in multiple organs, please refer to the respective parental articles on each different modality of ablation. The no-touch technique has been largely applied in liver tumors, particularly oligometastatic disease and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its indications and advantages compared to the traditional technique are:

peripheral subcapsular tumor location
- advantages: tumor capsular breach is avoided and, therefore, decreased risk of hemorrhage and tumor seeding
has been shown to provide better sustained local tumor response for HCC less than 5 cm when compared to standard RFA technique