Numerical modeling and Uncertainty analysis of irreversible electroporation in liver tumors

Abstract

There are many conditions that can affect the tumor destruction during ablation of tumor. The purpose of this article is to study which factors influenced the effect of electroporation in the Abdominal surgery. Our research focuses on ablation size and temperature. Five factors were taken into account including pulse intensity (U), electrode diameter (D), the location of the electrode from the center of the tumor (R), electrode length (L) and number of electrode (M). In the study, the changes of the electric field in the ablation area were monitored by numerical modeling and simulation of tumor. At the same time, the degree of tumor ablation was evaluated according to temperature threshold and electric field threshold. A number of experiments were conducted to verify the effect of various parameters on the outcome of tumor treatment. The uncertainty analysis of the experimental results showed that U and L had great influence on the ablation volume, while D, R and M had a small influence. In addition, U, R, and M have significant effects on the maximum temperature, while D and L only have a small impact. Finally, the uncertainty is quantified by using the polynomial chaos expansion to establish a mathematical model between them.