Freeze therapy cure for lung cancer
Doctorsareusing a probe that freezes tumours at temperature of -190 C to treat
lung cancer in patients who otherwise could not have surgery.Normally surgeons aim to cut out the cancer but this is not always possible , for example if the patient is frail.
|Using a special probe that turns the tumour into an ice-ball, surgeons at the Harefield Hospital in |Middlesex have successfully treated 16 patients .Seven of these had the operation over a year ago and are still disease free.
Omar Malwand , the surgeon who carried out the operations, said about 2,000 lung cancer patients a year in the UK would be eligible for this treatment .Removal of the lung is the treatment of choice for patients with early stage lung cancer.However, for about 20% of these patients removing the diseased lung is not an option as it leaves them with severe breathing problems and a poor quality of life.
|The
cryosurgery procedure involves making a cut of about 12cm in the chest wall so the probe can be
advanced directly onto the tumour.
Liquid nitrogen is used as a coolant to freeze the tumour, which then disintegrates within the body over the next three to six month-which thescientists do notthink is dangerous , with patients so farhaving good results
|The surgery is less invasive than the conventional way and the recovery time is typically shorter—patients treated with the direct pulmonary cryosurgery can go home after four days.Cryosurgery is not a new technique and has been used on other organs and tissues in the body.
|However, the Harefield team believe they are the first to use it in this way to treat lung cancer and say the results so far are extremely encouraging .
|Freezing the tumour is farless damaging to the lung.The ideal patient is one who has early cancer but with poor lung function, said Maiwand.
Dr Slow Ming Lee , lung cancer expert from Cancer Research UK,said :This is a fascinating new approach for patients who are not considered suitable forsurgery because their tumours are more advanced than expected. However this was a small study and further studies are needed to clarify the role of direct cryosurgery versus the conventional approach of radiotherapy and chemotherapy , before it can be recommended for patients whose tumours are found to be inoperable.