Microwave Ablation of Resectable Liver Tumors

Minimally invasive surgical alternatives are becoming more attractive for the treatment of malignancy.The goal is to reduce morbidity and mortality and increase the ability to treat patients in the outpatient setting. Image-guided ablation is becoming an attractive alternative because of its relative low cost, its ability to provide large regions of coagulative necrosis in a controlled fashion, and its relatively low toxicity. Although image-guided ablative techniques have been extensively investigated for the treatment of liver tumors, there has been limited experience with microwave ablation (MWA) in the liver. This study will evaluate the treatment effect of MWA in liver tumors. Patients undergoing planned surgical removal of liver tumors will have the tumors intra-operatively treated with MWA. The histological changes will be evaluated upon removal of the specimen.