Using image-guided multiprobe cryotherapy, researchers in Detroit have successfully frozen breast cancer in patients who refused surgery, and, as a result, the women did not have to undergo surgery after treatment to ensure that the tumors had been killed.
The results, from a study conducted at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, were presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) annual meeting this week in Tampa, FL.
Dr. Peter Littrup, an interventional radiologist and director of imaging research and image-guided therapy at the Detroit facility, said minimally invasive cryotherapy opens the door for a potential new treatment for breast cancer and needs to be further tested. When used for local control and/or potential cure of breast cancer, it provided safe and effective breast conservation with minimal discomfort for a group of women who refused invasive surgery or had a local recurrence and needed additional management.
In the 13-patient study, no localized treatment recurrences were seen for up to five years, no significant complications were noted, and women were pleased with the cosmetic outcomes, noted Littrup, who also serves as a professor of radiology, urology, and radiation oncology at Wayne State University in Detroit.
In this study's cryotherapy treatment, researchers used several needlelike cryoprobes that were evenly spaced and were inserted through the skin to deliver extremely cold gas directly to tumors to freeze them.
The major benefits of cryotherapy are its superb visualization of the ice treatment zone during the procedure, its low pain profile in an outpatient setting, and its excellent healing with minimal scar, Littrup said.
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