Application of respiratory sensing technique in CT-guided radiofrequency ablation of liver malignancies.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the effectiveness and safety of respiratory sensing methods in nonvascular interventional therapy of liver tumors.

Materials and methods: In this study, 64 patients with primary liver cancer or liver metastasis were retrospectively analyzed. According to two widely used clinical techniques to limit respiratory movement-breath holding and respiratory sensing technology-they were randomly allocated into two groups: respiratory gated and respiratory training. We aimed to compare the application and effect of these two techniques in the nonvascular interventional therapy of liver tumors.

Results: The puncture times of the respiratory-gated and respiratory training groups were 5.34 ± 2.47 and 8.41 ± 3.63 min, respectively. Puncture errors were 10.00 ± 2.65 and 12.81 ± 8.57 mm, respectively. Puncture adjustment times were 3.06 ± 1.26 and 4.87 ± 1.69 times, respectively, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.01).

Conclusions: Respiratory sensing technology has been effectively used to assist in puncturing liver malignant tumors using a radiofrequency (RF) ablation (RFA) system that is guided by computed tomography (CT) scans. It is superior to the classical breath-holding step puncture technique in terms of puncture time, puncture error, and puncture needle adjustment times.