Using tiny needles guided by an ultrasound probe, surgeons can freeze cancer cells in the prostate and send you home the next day.
The outcomes are extremely promising, said Dr. Javier A. Felipe-Morales of St. Elizabeth Physicians.
“At the present time I have close to 200 cases. After approximately six months, I checked to see if cancer had returned. Only three recurred,” said Felipe-Morales.
“It’s not me, it’s the technology,” the urologist said.
Patients are generally admitted for observation overnight. They go home the next day after the two-hour procedure. It is done under general or regional anesthetic.
“In the time of my grandfather, who was also a surgeon, he used to say ‘Big incision for a big surgeon,’ ” said Felipe-Morales. No longer. Cryotherapy requires no incision.
Cryotherapy has been around a long time but was generally abandoned for prostate surgery because pinpoint precision was not available. Now the technology exists
Guided by the ultrasound image on the computer, the doctor can see where he is inserting the needles containing argon gas to freeze the tissue in the prostate, a gland the size of a walnut. Tiny icicles form in the cells and destroy them. “It’s very precise placement and very precise temperatures, as low as -40 degrees centigrade,” he said.
“This is the third generation of cryotherapy. It’s so much better,” said Felipe-Morales.
Cryotherapy is most often recommended for men with early-stage prostate cancer that is confined to the prostate.
It is also used for late-stage prostate cancer. Even when cancer cells have escaped the prostate and are lodged elsewhere in the body, cryotherapy can control the source of those cells. Chemotherapy and radiation are still required.
Surgery, even robotic surgery, can damage nerves. Cryotherapy leaves no scar and significantly reduces the risk of infection and recovery time. So far, Felipe-Morales said, the incidence of incontinence is zero, the incidence of fissures is zero, but the incidence of impotence is still high.
“If we compare cryotherapy to radical surgery, cryotherapy has a better survival rate,” said Felipe-Morales.
