Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and microwave ablation (MWA) are both effective for treating lung cancer, according to new research published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
Researchers, led by Zhuhui Yuan, MBBS, of Beijing Ditan Hospital and Capital Medical University, in Beijing, China, performed a meta-analysis to compare the safety and effectiveness of RFA and MWA. The team examined 53 high-quality studies from 2010 to 2017 for its research. More than 3,400 patients were used as the study cohort.
To be included in the meta-analysis, the study had to have human subjects and patients with lung cancer, including primary or metastatic cancer, of all stages and sub-types. The studies also needed to report the clinical outcome after RFA or MWA and report the survival status post treatment at one, two, three four and five years. Finally, they had to be either prospective or retrospective randomized controlled trials and non-randomized controlled trials.
The overall survival (OS) rates for one-, two-, three-, four- and five-years were higher for RFA-treated patients compared to those treated utilizing MWA, the researchers found. The average OS, average medial progression-free survival (PFS), median local tumor PFS, complete ablation rate and adverse events did not differ between RFA and MWA-treated patients.
“RFA is associated with longer survival than MWA, and patients with pulmonary metastases showed better survival after RFA compared with MWA-treated patients,” Yuan et al. wrote.
When further stratified by tumor type, the researchers found median OS for RFA-treated patients with pulmonary metastases was greater than the MWA-treated patients. But they noted their result should be interpreted with caution as there were few studies included in the RFA and MWA groups.
“Moreover, the largest sample size in the RFA group was 64 patients, and the smallest was 21, which may decrease the statistical power and yield immature survival data,” they wrote. “Hence, we could not definitively conclude that RFA is superior to MWA for treating lung metastasis.”
Still, Yuan et al. found both RFA and MWA are both effective and safe approaches for treating lung cancer. And, they noted, future long-term, large sample randomized controlled trials are needed to compare the clinical outcomes between both RFA and MWA.
As a senior news writer for TriMed, Subrata covers cardiology, clinical innovation and healthcare business. She has a master’s degree in communication management and 12 years of experience in journalism and public relations.