A minimally invasive microwave ablation antenna

Microwave ablation (MWA) is a promising technique for the treatment of cancer in various body organs such as liver, kidneys, lungs, and bones. This is especially suitable in cases of patients that are not viable candidates for surgical resection. This paper proposes a new approach to reducing the diameter of the microwave ablation antenna. Instead of sticking to antennas whose input impedance matches that of a standard 50 Ω coaxial cable feed-line, we propose to make the antenna as thin as enabled by common manufacturing technology, and match its input impedance, which is much lower than 50 Ω, to the feed-line outside of the patient body. In this work a balun-less, extremely thin antenna is designed for liver tumor treatment at 10 GHz. Simulations of the antenna reveal nearly spherical ablation zone.