“Percutaneous RF Interstitial Thermal Ablation in the Treatment of Hepatic Cancer”— A Commentary

Abstract

he AJR’s Centennial celebration recognizes “Percutaneous RF Interstitial Thermal Ablation in the Treatment of Hepatic Cancer” [1] as one of the most influential articles published in the AJR’s first 100 years. This article helped establish an entirely new field in radiology: percutaneous imaging-guided ablation therapy for liver malignancies. This extremely important article, written by Rossi and colleagues [1] who have established themselves as leaders in the area of percutaneous imaging-guided tumor ablation, was critical in setting the stage for expansion and advances of imaging-guided radiofrequency ablation of tumors. Earlier articles published by these authors gave preliminary results for using radiofrequency ablation in the treatment of inoperable liver tumors [2, 3]. However, this article was particularly important, hence the numerous citations, for several reasons. First, the authors showed the efficacy of this approach by systematically confirming the diagnosis of malignancy in each patient treated. Each treated lesion was a biopsyproven malignancy. This proof of malignancy validated the effectiveness of the technique in achieving oncologic control. Second, the authors are to be applauded for their careful and meticulous follow-up of patients treated with radiofrequency ablation for liver cancer in their series. This study spanned a 7-year experience using imaging-guided radiofrequency ablation for the treatment of liver tumors. The average patient follow-up was almost 2 years, a period adequate to critically compare this technique with surgical resection, which was previously the gold standard. Rossi and colleagues [1] carefully evalu