# Robust GPU-based Virtual Reality Simulation of Radio Frequency Ablations for Various Needle Geometries and Locations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.05709 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05709/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 11 Jul 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [PhysRFANet: Physics-Guided Neural Network for Real-Time Prediction of Thermal Effect During Radiofrequency Ablation Treatment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13947/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Purpose: Radio-frequency ablations play an important role in the therapy of malignant liver lesions. The navigation of a needle to the lesion poses a challenge for both the trainees and intervening physicians. Methods: This publication presents a new GPU-based, accurate method for the simulation of radio-frequency ablations for lesions at the needle tip in general and for an existing visuo-haptic 4D VR simulator. The method is implemented real-time capable with Nvidia CUDA. Results: It performs better than a literature method concerning the theoretical characteristic of monotonic convergence of the bioheat PDE and a in vitro gold standard with significant improvements (p < 0.05) in terms of Pearson correlations. It shows no failure modes or theoretically inconsistent individual simulation results after the initial phase of 10 seconds. On the Nvidia 1080 Ti GPU it achieves a very high frame rendering performance of >480 Hz. Conclusion: Our method provides a more robust and safer real-time ablation planning and intraoperative guidance technique, especially avoiding the over-estimation of the ablated tissue death zone, which is risky for the patient in terms of tumor recurrence. Future in vitro measurements and optimization shall further improve the conservative estimate.