In this statement by me the term "Interventional" became highlighted and linked to inappropriate definitions:
"Radiofrequency Ablation became, over time, the main Interventional Oncology technique -- during which time IO practice grew a lot, and radiofrequency ablation (RFA) became the dominant IO therapy – this despite frequent problems from burns and imprecise heating (the RF currents often bypassed the tumor by following nearby blood vessels, leading to damage of healthy tissue – an issue that MWA largely overcomes)."
"Interventional Oncology" is not a self-defining term! I have seen it defined, loosely, as "image-guided oncology", but I don't see that as very helpful. My just prior post is much clearer regarding the ablation markets. As I see it, both radiotherapy and chemotherapy are also ablation techniques, in that they kill tumors in-place (which are then left in-place to be dealt with by the body, which has great capacity for scarifying or absorbing the dead tissue). Of key importance are that indirect heating to high-temperatures a) effectively kills all cells in tumors of many types (all types?) and b) does not have the serious negative side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Consider that radiotherapy and chemotherapy both suffer from a tendency to not kill *all* the cells in tumors. Chemicals are introduced to the tumor cells through blood vessels, but the chemicals may not diffuse out of the blood vessels into all cancer cells well enough to kill all of them. And, ionizing radiation of various types is particulate, so it acts like a barrage of tiny bullets -- which randomly kill cells, cancerous and healthy. This means that some cells might not be "hit", unless a very high density of "bullets" is used. And, that high-density means that many healthy cells are killed (along the radiation paths to the tumor) -- quite likely more than the number of cancer cells killed. Precision heating is better! -- heating outside the tumor can be kept below the lethal level, since lethal heating has a threshold (not so for ionizing radiation, which has no threshold for damage -- any "hit" is lethal).
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