Rate of Recurrence of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in Patients Treated with Percutaneous Ablation

Background: Percutaneous ablation therapy as a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been increasingly utilized. There is little data on long term efficacy. Because of this we reviewed the rate of recurrence of all ablation procedures done at our institution for the last 6 years. Methods: A total of 36 patients underwent 43 percutaneous procedures from July 2008 until January 2014 at our institution. There were 9 patients treated with radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and 27 treated withmicrowave ablation (MWA) for Stage I NSCLC. Each patient was reviewed to determine if there was a recurrence, the time to recurrence and the characteristics of the original cancer possibly predisposing the procedure to failure. Results: There were 8 recurrences in 9 patients undergoing RFA occurring at a median time of 842 days (range 425 - 1568) after their procedure. MWA was utilized in 27 patients for 34 procedures with 11 patients experiencing recurrences at a median time of 487 days (range 168 - 845). The median follow up time for the RFA patients was 1631 days (4.46 years) and for the MWA patients 751 days (2.06 years). Of the RFA recurrences, 5 involved systemic spread of their cancer and 3 were limited to site recurrences only. Of the MWA recurrences, 5 involved systemic spread of their cancer, 2 had chest wall recurrences and 4 were limited to site recurrences only.