Just before heading to press with The Prostate Storm, something very cool, literally, crossed my desk on a new form of crytotherapy that may actually kill prostate cancer cells without the usual side effects.Well, that's the promise anyway.
It's called focal cryoablation, which allows doctors to freeze cancer cells at negative 40 degrees, using 3D biopsies to target the treatment directly to the tumor. Sounds like a targeted cold therapy to me -- not unlike the targeted radiation of IGRT compared to the old shotgun approach with external beam.
In conventional crytotherapy, the treatment would freeze the prostate in order to kill off clusters of cancer cells. Side effects are considered rather mild, although the big risk is the impairment of sexual function, so I suppose it depends on your definition of “mild.” The freezing of the prostate may destroy the nerve bundles responsible for erections.
In the super-cold focal cryoablation, the treatment, in theory, only targets the cancer, not sensitive nerve bundles. It can also be delivered in a single, outpatient treatment, where radiation and other similar therapies can take weeks or even months.
Crytotherapy has been regarded as an option for high-risk groups, or those who have failed in previous radiation therapies. Maybe the super-cold cryo treatment will have a wider application in the near future. Ask you doctor about it.
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