Cryosurgery, sometimes called cryotherapy or cryoablation, is a method of destroying abnormal or diseased tissues in extremely low temperatures. Cryosurgery has yielded many excellent results as adjunctive therapy for benign or malignant tumors that are difficult to eliminate with conventional surgery. It has attractive clinical advantages over conventional surgical resection:
- Less invasive
- Causes less pain
- Bleeding and other surgical complications are avoided
- Less expensive
- Recovery period and a much shorter hospital stay.
Cryosurgery is not yet a routine cancer treatment but is developing fairly rapidly as an alternative to standard radiation therapy and chemotherapy. With the advent of many modern imaging techniques, the field of cryosurgery has expanded considerably since its inception.
How does cold destroy cells?
Damage to cells caused by cold temperatures begins gradually as the temperature decreases. Metabolism and cell structure change, along with the proteins and lipids that make up the cell. Indeed, if this condition persists for a long time, cell death can occur even without exposure to low temperatures. The destructive effects of cryosurgery can be grouped into two main mechanisms:
- Cell injury is the result of the damaging effect of cooling and heating cycles
- Vascular injury results from progressive microcirculation failure, final vascular stasis, and subsequent necrosis
When the temperature falls to 0°C, the water crystallizes. This not only prolongs cooling, but also causes more damage. Crystallization occurs first in the extracellular lumen, where water is expelled from the system, creating a hyperosmotic extracellular environment. In turn, water is withdrawn from the cell. Effective “cell dehydration” occurs predominantly at temperatures between 0°C and -20°C. After enough time in this dehydrated state, the level of intracellular electrolytes increases, often enough to kill the cell.
What is the gas most used in cryotherapies?
There is some disagreement as to the exact temperature that needs to be reached in order to reliably kill mammalian cells. Tissues are frozen at approximately -2.2 °C; temperatures below -20 °C are believed to consistently cause cell death. In one study they used thermography to measure the emission of infrared after spraying liquid nitrogen into the jaw of a pig. The jaws were evaluated histologically, and the lethal zone of the cells occurred at a temperature of -15 to -20 °C. When considering the different techniques and agents used for cryosurgery, a reasonable assumption is that a temperature of at least 20 °C should be reached.
Liquid nitrogen has become the most common cryogen for the treatment of tumors, including intra-abdominal tumors. In this sense, liquid nitrogen has an evaporation temperature of -196 °C and theoretically can produce these temperatures in tissues. Thus, liquid nitrogen cryoprobes and cryoprobes have been used to cause tissue death in many places throughout the body.
What is the scope of cryotherapy?
Imaging cryosurgery has revived this field, and numerous applications are continuously emerging. With new applications, the need to improve cryosurgical catheters has emerged. In recent years, new cryosurgical systems have been developed using super-cooled liquid nitrogen, Joule-Thomson refrigeration with gas mixtures, closed-cycle Stirling refrigeration and heat tube refrigeration. Cryosurgery is expected to become a standard technique in the arsenal of minimally invasive surgeons in areas as diverse as:
- Neurology
- Urology
- Gynecology
- Dermatology
- Dentistry
- Oncology
- Orthopedics
- Cardiology
- Pulmonary medicine
Why a Kalstein tank of nitrogen?
The destruction of cancer cells with cold, using liquid nitrogen has been maintained as a therapy that has brought good results, so it is necessary to have a tank of nitrogen of quality, as those produced by the manufacturer of instrumentation Kalstein. These tanks, which can be checked at the following link HERE In addition, they are designed for the needs of doctors, as they are safe to handle, they are light and resistant, some are low capacity and evaporative losses are minimal. On the company home page HERE , in addition to this, you will find other products for purchase or price review.