الفهرس 
Anatomy of the LungsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide, accounting for 1.2 million new cases annually, and the malignancy ranks first in cancer deaths for both men and women. Lung cancer has an occult onset and progresses rapidly. Most of these cases progress to middle or advanced stages at definite diagnosis, thereby losing the opportunity of surgical treatment. Surgical resection remains the treatment of choice for patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer. However, some patients are not surgical candidates because of medical problems. Therefore, alternative therapies are considered in these medically inoperable patients. Although chemotherapy and radiation therapy or combination of these serve as alternative treatment for those inoperable patients, complete remission of the disease is rarely achieved. There are two groups of patients for whom percutaneous tumor ablation can currently be considered: (1) Patients with early-stage primary (non-small-cell) lung cancer with no lymph node metastasis who are not candidates for surgery as a result of comorbidity. (2) Patients with pulmonary metastases who are not candidates for curative resection of metastases or those with a limited number of pulmonary metastases, as part of palliative care. Underlying principle of thermal ablation is that coagulative necrosis and cell death occur immediately at temperatures greater than 60°C. In clinical practice, RFA of lung tumors routinely achieves temperatures greater than 70°C. Unlike the liver, kidney, or soft tissue, where the choice of image guidance may be among ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and CT, CT is today the only accurate image guidance modality for lung RFA. RF ablation is becoming a viable option for the treatment of metastatic disease to the lungs. After ablation, histology shows typical zones of thermal damage, radiating away from the central heat source.