Effects of Repeated Use and Resterilization on Structural and Functional Integrity of Microwave Ablation Antennas & Development of a Protocol for Microwave Ablation of Normal Canine Long Bones and Bones with Osteosarcoma
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Microwave ablation is a palliative or curative treatment for neoplasms in various organs in human medicine. This thesis is an investigation of the use of microwave ablation in veterinary medicine. In the first phase of the project, the goal was to determine effects of repeated use and resterilization on the structural and functional integrity of microwave ablation (MWA) antennas. Ablations were performed in livers of bovine cadavers at the maximum recommended settings. Antennas were cleaned, sterilized in hydrogen peroxide plasma, and the process was repeated (reprocessing cycle; n = 6). Aerobic and anaerobic bacterial cultures were performed, and antennas were assessed for damage with microscopy. The results showed that the structural and functional integrity of the microwave antennas remained acceptable during repeated use and reprocessing for up to 4 cycles. However, there was a decrease in functional integrity at cycles 5 and 6. It is suggested that these microwave antennas be subjected to ≤ 3 reprocessing cycles. This will decrease the cost of the technique in veterinary medicine. Antennas should be carefully examined before reuse. The objectives of the second phase of the project were to describe a technique to perform MWA in long bones of normal dogs, and develop a protocol for MWA zone sizes in normal canine bone at different settings. An additional goal was to compare MWA zones in normal bones to those with osteosarcoma (OSA). MWA at 4 different settings were randomized in the proximal and distal metaphyses of femurs and tibias from normal dog cadavers. In 3 cadaver OSA bones, ablations were performed at the maximum previous setting. A MWA technique was successfully described in normal canine long bones. For the settings tested, it was not possible to build a rigorous chart of ablation zone sizes. This highlights the importance of monitoring the ablation with diagnostic imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT). The MWA technique was applied to bones with OSA. Some ablations were difficult to delineate; overall the ablation zone sizes were slightly larger than in normal bones. Further work is needed to fully compare the ablation zone sizes obtained to normal bone.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".