Development and Testing of a Low Cost, Minimally Invasive Radiofrequency Thermal Probe for Hyperthermia Therapy

There has been a growing need to advance the use of thermal ablation therapy as a minimally invasive technique in cancer management. Consequently, this study was undertaken to investigate the use of radiofrequency (RF) energy by developing and testing an economical and effective radiofrequency thermal probe that will effectively destroy volumes of pathological tumours by means of hyperthermia. The thermal probe was tested on different tissue samples and evaluated for effective tissue destruction capability. The results show that, at power settings of 20 watts for soft tissue, 13 watts for kidney tissue, 6 watts for liver tissue, 3 watts for brain tissue and 2 watts for lung tissue, the radiofrequency thermal probe effectively destroys volumes of pathological tumours within a temperature range of 50 - 100degC during a 15-minute treatment time.