Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a curative option for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common primary malignancy of the liver. This bicentric retrospective study includes 46 patients admitted for their first percutaneous RFA for HCC. Sixty-three nodules were treated, with an average size of 32.5 mm. Our study confirms the efficiency of this technique for attaining necrosis of HCC nodul...

We report a hybrid imaging technique capable of performing measurements of the spatial, temporal, and spectral emission characteristics of laser-induced plasmas by use of a single detection system. We apply this technique to study the plasma produced by laser ablation of LiNbO3 and observe phenomena not seen in such detail with standard instruments. These include extreme line broadening up to a...

Surgeon-performed ultrasound has also been increasingly utilised by breast surgeons in particular, who find ultrasound an invaluable tool in the office to assist in the management of breast patients, and also in the operating room where it can be used to directly guide excision of impalpable breast lesions without the use of hookwires2,3. In the future, the role of ultrasound will continue to g...

Endocardial atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation techniques enable one to characterize the underlying substrate in order to tailor the ablation procedure but these ablation lesions are not always transmural nor long lasting. Surgical AF ablation techniques, on the other hand, create reliable linear lesions but the lesion set is based on empirical assumptions rather than specific patient characteri...

The efficacy of catheter-based ablation techniques to treat atrial fibrillation is limited not only by recurrences of this arrhythmia but also, and not less importantly, by new-onset organized atrial tachycardias. The incidence of such tachycardias depends on the type and duration of the baseline atrial fibrillation and specially on the ablation technique which was used during the index procedu...

We have carried out a systematic study of the resistive transition, and the detailed I-V characteristic in magnetic fields of the YBa$&@ (YBCO) single crystals and highly c-axis oriented YBCO thin film prepared by the laser ablation technique. Our data can be well described in the context of the model proposed by Fisher et al.,’ suggest that the existence of the vortex glass (or solid) to vorte...

BACKGROUND For many woman who suffer from menorrhagia, treatment would previously have meant hysterectomy. Today there are a number of less invasive surgical options available, such as endometrial ablation, which involves removal of the endometrium and part of the myometrium. This article compares two endometrial ablative techniques--transcervical resection of the endometrium and thermal balloo...