To investigate the complications and preventions of radiofrequency ablation for lung tumors.

Totally 150 patients with lung malignant tumors received radiofrequency ablation, including 99 cases of primary lung cancer and 51 cases of metastatic lung cancer. The 99 cases of primary lung cancer included 87 cases of non-small cell lung cancer, 8 cases of small cell lung cancer and 4 cases of carcinosarcoma. Among 51 cases of metastatic lung cancer, 22 cases were from liver cancer, 12 cases were from soft tissue sarcoma, 9 cases were from colorectal cancer, 6 cases were from nasopharyngeal cancer, 1 case was from mediastinal yolk sac tumor and 1 case was from angiomyoliposarcoma. All patients had single lesion with a tumor size of 8-47 mm, with an average of (26±3.6) mm. CT-guided percutaneous radiofrequency ablation was performed in 133 patients once and 17 patients twice. The interval between two radiofrequency ablations was 1-4 weeks, with an average of (2±0.5) weeks.

Common complications included pneumothorax in 29 cases (19.3%) , pulmonary parenchymal hemorrhage in 35 cases (23.3%) , hemoptysis in 12 cases (8%) , pleural effusion in 3 cases (2%) , rare complications included pulmonary abscess in 1 case (0.7%) and subcutaneous emphysema in 1 case (0.7%) . No serious complications or perioperative deaths occurred.

The complications of radiofrequency ablation in treatment of lung tumors are mostly mild to moderate, which could be recovered by timely diagnosis and management.