3D correlation of MR thermal ablation images and tissue response

Interventional ARM-guided radiofrequency (RF) thermal ablation has been applied clinically for minimally invasive treatment of cancer. A principal advantage of MR is that it can reveal the treated region, hereafter called a thermal lesion. To study this, the authors have developed a method to allow accurate correlation of MR images and tissue response. The method includes new tissue-handling techniques and 3D image registration to geometrically align MR images of thermal lesions with optical images of gross pathology and histology tissue response. Using this new method one will be able to achieve accurate correlation of MR images with tissue response in various organs from animal models.