Interventional Cryoablation Stops Cancer Cold

New treatment for patients with small and localized kidney cancer

Imagine finding out that you have kidney cancer and that you’ll need 6 hours of surgery with up to 2 months recovery to remove the tumor. And, then, shortly before your scheduled surgery, you learn from a friend or the internet that you can be cured with a 90 minute out-patient procedure. That’s what happened to this man.

Alan Jacobs learned about a treatment performed by interventional radiologists. Interventional cryoablation is a minimally invasive, outpatient procedure that is relatively painless. Using imaging to pinpoint the tumor, an interventional radiologist guides a probe through the skin to the tumor and then releases gas to freeze it. The freezing process kills the tumor. Patients leave the hospital with only a band-aid and return to normal activity almost immediately.

Interventional Radiologists are physicians who specialize in minimally invasive, targeted treatments that offer less risk, less pain and less recovery time compared to open surgery.

Until now, the only option for patients with kidney cancer was several hours of surgery, a week in the hospital and 4 to 6 weeks of recovery. Patients not eligible for surgery or those with small tumors that have not spread beyond the kidney, now have another option. People who are too sick for surgery, can’t have general anesthesia, have borderline kidney function, only one kidney or multiple recurring tumors had no option till now.

Interventional cryoablation is approved by the FDA for soft tissue tumors, like kidney cancer. Even though it is a new treatment, it is offered throughout the United States

More than 32,000 Americans each year are diagnosed with kidney cancer. It is the 8th most common cancer in men and the 10th in women. Typically those with kidney cancer are past the age of 40 and are twice as likely to be men. Other risk factors include smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, long-term dialysis and Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome.

Produced for Society of Interventional Radiology