Introduction : To investigate the properties of a novel thermal accelerant (TA) in vitro, and the effects on ablation zone volumes following in vivo microwave ablation of porcine liver and skeletal muscle, and to investigate the TA administration on the heat sink effect.

Methods : In vivo study was performed in the liver using Sus scrofa domesticus swine, with and without TA administration. Treated tissues were explanted and stained with a vital stain (triphenyltetrazolium chloride, TTC) for quantification of ablation zone volumes, which were compared between TA and non-TA conditions. Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) staining was also performed for histologic analysis. A generalized, mixed-modeling with a negative binomial distribution was used for all quantitative comparisons. An overall a priori significance level of p=0.05 was used.

Results : The use of TA significantly increased microwave ablation zone volumes in a dose-dependent manner in both porcine muscle and liver (p

Conclusions : In comparison to the control, the use of TA significantly increased mean ablation zone volumes during the same ablation period. The ablation volume increase was TA dose-dependent, and inversely proportional to the degree of target organ perfusion. The results suggest that the use of TA enables the control of ablation size, direction as well as mitigation of the heat sink effect.