Patent ID: 8328726

Claim:
An apparatus for monitoring progress of high-frequency ablation comprising: an electrical probe adapted for percutaneous insertion into tissue to a tumor site; a high-frequency power source communicating with the electrical probe to ablate tissue at the tumor site; an actuator communicating with the electrode to provide vibration of the electrode along a first axis; a tissue imager measuring axial displacement of tissue in a volume extending from the tumor site along a second axis perpendicular to the first axis, such displacement characterizing a shear wave directed along the second axis; and an electronic computer receiving displacement data from the tissue imager and executing a stored program to: (a) compute a velocity of a shear wave along the second axis; (b) detect a change in shear wave velocity along the second axis indicating a boundary between ablated and non-ablated tissue along the second axis; and (c) output data indicating a size of an ablation region along the second axis based on the detected change in shear wave velocity.