CSA Medical | truFreeze
There are a lot of energy
options that doctors can
use for ablating GI
lesions, but one innova-
tive system is truFreeze,
which uses liquid nitro-
gen to kill pre-cancer-
ous or cancerous cells.
The system's device is
inserted down the chan-
nel of an endoscope, and
the physician can then
spray the -196°C liquid
onto the damaged tis-
sue. The tissue is flash-
frozen, and as it warms
up, the cells die off and
eventually new, healthy
cells replace the dead ones. The treatment causes less inflamma-
tion and tissue damage than heat methods like radiofrequency, and
takes roughly 10 to 20 minutes per procedure.
While the concept has been around for a while, the big news out
of DDW was a peer-reviewed study that showed just how effective
liquid nitrogen cryotherapy is compared to other ablation methods.
The system was shown to effectively penetrate tissue more deeply
than other freezing options, ablating 138.5 mm of simulated malig-
nant tissue volume while both nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide
ablated 0 mm each after a 15- to 30-second application.
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