A two-scale model of radio-frequency electrosurgical tissue ablation

Radio-frequency electrosurgical procedures are widely used to simultaneously dissect and coagulate tissue. Experiments suggest that evaporation of cellular and intra-cellular water plays a significant role in the evolution of the temperature field at the tissue level, which is not adequately captured in a single scale energy balance equation. Here, we propose a two-scale model to study the effects of microscale phase change and heat dissipation in response to radiofrequency heating on the tissue level in electrosurgical ablation procedures. At the microscale, the conservation of mass along with thermodynamic and mechanical equilibrium is applied to obtain an equation-of-state relating vapor mass fraction to temperature and pressure. The evaporation losses are incorporated in the macro-level energy conservation and results are validated with mean experimental temperature distributions measured from electrosurgical ablation testing on ex vivo porcine liver at different power settings of the electrosurgical instrument. Model prediction of water loss and its effect on the temperature along with the effect of the mechanical properties on results are evaluated and discussed.