Abstract:
Thermal ablation therapy is known as an advantageous alternative to surgery allowing
the treatment of multiple tumors located in hard-to-reach locations or treating patients with medical
conditions that are not compatible with surgery. Appropriate heat propagation and precise control
over the heat propagation is considered a weak point of thermal ablation therapy. In this work,
silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are used to improve the heat propagation properties during the thermal
ablation procedure. Green-synthesized silver nanoparticles offer several attractive features, such as
excellent thermal conductivity, biocompatibility, and antimicrobial activity. A distributed multiplexed
fiber optic sensing system is used to monitor precisely the temperature change during nanoparticle assisted radiofrequency ablation. An array of six MgO-based nanoparticles doped optical fibers
spliced to single-mode fibers allowed us to obtain the two-dimensional thermal maps in a real time
employing optical backscattering reflectometry at 2 mm resolution and 120 sensing points. The silver
nanoparticles at 5, 10, and 20 mg/mL were employed to investigate their heating effects at several
positions on the tissue regarding the active electrode. In addition, the pristine tissue and tissue treated
with agarose solution were also tested for reference purposes. The results demonstrated that silver
nanoparticles could increase the temperature during thermal therapies by propagating the heat. The
highest temperature increase was obtained for 5 mg/mL silver nanoparticles introduced to the area
close to the electrode with a 102% increase of the ablated area compared to the pristine tissue.