Noninvasive thermal ablation of hepatocellular carcinoma by using magnetic resonance imaging-guided focused ultrasound.

A number of minimally invasive methods have been tested for the thermal ablation of liver tumors as an alternative to surgical resection. The use of focused ultrasound transducers to ablate deep tumors offers the first completely noninvasive alternative to these techniques. By increasing the flexibility of this technology with modern phased-array transducer design and by combining it with magnetic resonance imaging for targeting and online guidance, a powerful tool results with the potential to offer treatment to a larger population of patients, to reduce trauma to the patient, and to reduce the cost of treatment. In this article, we review previous work with focused ultrasound in the liver and recent experimental results with magnetic resonance imaging guidance.