New Methods: Cryosurgery

Cutting with Cold.

Cryosurgery is surgery by freezing. Normal surgery involves cutting through tissue to reach and remove abnormal masses. In routine procedures it is usually necessary to remove some normal tissue at the edges of the surgical field. The body heals after surgery by scarring both internal and external tissues. Cryosurgery may involve an initial incision with a knife to reach an area of interest, but the main difference is the use of a precise freezing probe. A medium such as liquid nitrogen is pumped into the probe, causing it to freeze at low temperatures; the probe is then used to kill tissue it contacts but not surrounding cells. The body heals by dissolving the dead tissue. Some scarring generally occurs, but it is not as severe as that caused by surgery using a knife. Between 1960 and 1965 cryosurgery progressed in several specialty medical applications from a novelty to a commonly used surgical technique.

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