Nuclear Oncology

Posts Tagged ‘Cryotherapy’

Cryotherapy applied nitrogen or argon gas at extremely cold temperatures to destroy diseased tissue. To destroy diseased tissue located outside the body, liquid nitrogen is applied directly with a cotton swab or spray. For tumors located below the skin surface and depth in the body, the doctor uses imaging guidance to insert one or more applications, or cryoprobes through the skin to the site of diseased tissue and then deliver the liquid nitrogen or argon gas.

Living tissue, healthy or sick, can not tolerate extremely low temperatures, and die due to:

* Ice in the fluid outside the cells, resulting in cellular dehydration.
* Ice within the cell. At approximately -40 ° C (-40 ° F) or less, begin to form intracellular ice crystals can break lethal than almost any cell.
* Blast the cell swelling or shrinkage. If ice forms only outside the cell, osmosis (the movement of a solution through the membrane of a cell) causes the cell to shrink and let out water inside to replace the water that has become on ice. Then, when the area thaws, the water re-enters the cell rapidly shrinking and makes it explode. Thus, cryotherapy usually consists of a series of steps in which tumors are frozen and thawed several times.
* Loss of blood supply. Cells die when the ice that forms in the small blood vessels destroys the tumor’s blood supply, causing clotting. Since the average time to clot blood is approximately 10 minutes, keeping the cold for at least 10 to 15 minutes to make unless the temperature of tumors suggest that lethal-ice temperatures have already been reached. Read the rest of this entry »

Cryotherapy, also called cryosurgery, cryoablation or targeted cryoablation therapy, is a minimally invasive treatment that uses intense cold to freeze and destroy diseased tissue, including cancer cells. While the terms cryotherapy and cryosurgery can be used interchangeably, the term “cryosurgery” is reserved for cryotherapy performed better in surgically and open.

During cryotherapy, liquid nitrogen or argon gas to diseased cells located outside or inside the body. Doctors use imaging guidance techniques such as ultrasound, computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to help guide these substances freezers to treatment sites located within the body.

Some common uses of the procedure

Cryotherapy can be applied topically (on the surface of the skin) in percutaneously or surgically. Cryotherapy is commonly used topically in cases of injury of the skin and eyes. When the lesion is below the skin surface, a probe of therapy or needle-like applicator needs to be placed through the skin. In some cases require a surgical incision. Read the rest of this entry »