Design of a Dual Slot Antenna for Small Animal Microwave Ablation Studies

This study presents the development of a dual-slot antenna for small animal tumor ablation. By using a dual-slot design at 8 GHz, it was hypothesized that smaller and more spherical ablations can be produced. After computer-aided design optimization, antennas were fabricated and ablations performed at 5-20 W for 15-120 s with the objective of creating ablations with a diameter/length aspect ratio of at least 0.9. The new dual-slot design at 8 GHz created significantly more spherical ablations than a commercial antenna at 2.45 GHz in ex vivo liver tissue (Average Aspect Ratio 0.8081 vs. 0.4532, p << 0.05). In vivo studies confirmed the highly spherical results ex vivo. Initial testing shows that the dual-slot antenna and 8 GHz generator can be used to ablate tumors in mice.