Design and Simulation of Cryoablation Needle with Adjustable Throttle-Nozzle

In tumor cryoablation therapy, the effective improvement of the cooling rate of the freezing process is a research hotspot. In this study, a novel cryoablation needle with an adjustable throttle nozzle was designed. The external surface temperature of the needle could be reduced to -80 ℃ within just 4 s, while the traditional cryoablation needle with a fixed throttling nozzle requires 73 s. The three-dimensional heat transfer model simulation results show that the temperature around the cryoablation needle drops sharply to -150 ℃ within 120 s, and the fastest instantaneous cooling rate is 1500-1575 ℃/min, which achieves the purpose of rapid cooling. In addition, the -20 ℃ isotherm has a small variation range from 60 s to 120 s (increasing from 5 mm to 6.5 mm), and the temperature changes tend to be gentle after 120 s, and the tissue damage range increases to 9 mm, indicating that the tissue damage range increases significantly. Comprehensive studies have shown that the adjustable throttling nozzle cryoablation needle has a higher cooling rate and larger effective ablation range, which is of great significance for clinical cryoablation treatment.