The LUMIRA trial evaluated the effectiveness of radiofrequency (RFA) and microwave ablation (MWA) in lung tumours ablation and defining more precisely their fields of application. It is a controlled prospective multi-centre random trial with 1:1 randomization. Fifty-two patients in stage IV disease (15 females and 37 males, mean age 69 y.o., range 40-87) were included. We randomized the patients in two different subgroups: MWA group and RFA group. For each group, we evaluated the technical and clinical success, the overall survival and complication rate. Inter-group difference was compared using Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test for categorical variables and one-way ANOVA test for continuous variables. For RFA group, there was a significant reduction in tumour size only between 6 and 12 months (p value = 0.0014). For MWA group, there was a significant reduction in tumour size between 6 and 12 months (p value = 0.0003) and between pre-therapy and 12 months (p value = 0.0215). There were not significant differences between the two groups in terms of survival time (p value = 0.883), while the pain level in MWA group was significantly less than in RFA group (1.79 < 3.25, p value = 0.0043). In conclusion, our trial confirms RFA and MWA are both excellent choices in terms of efficacy and safety in lung tumour treatments. However, when compared to RFA therapy, MWA produced a less intraprocedural pain and a significant reduction in tumour mass.
Keywords: Ablation treatment; Lung cancer; Microwave; Radiofrequency.