New technological methods to assist percutaneous cryoablation procedures are here presented, namely a planning software and a simulation algorithm. The first has the role to calculate a feasible displacement of the tools to ensure an effective ablation of the lesion, satisfying well-specified procedural constraints. Starting from intra-operative CT scans of the patient, a virtual model of the anatomical site is obtained and uploaded. The displacement of the cryoprobes is computed in order to cover the whole volume of the tumour with the developed iceball, but minimizing the damage to surrounding healthy renal tissue. On the other hand, the simulation algorithm is a graphical tool useful to assess the temperature distribution throughout the evolution of the procedure. A discrete iterative function calculates the heat transfer from the probes to the surrounding tissue within a specified three-dimensional grid: the isolation of significant isotherms can help to assess whether the whole tumour will be frozen or not. By using a real intra-operative dataset of a successful percutaneous cryoablation, the volume of the real iceball has been matched with that generated from the simulator, showing a good accuracy in terms of dimension and shape. Even though been designed to be integrated within a robotic system, this method is usable and extensible for different purposes and adapted to simulate other scenarios or procedures.
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