Cryotherapy at Nuffield Health at St Bartholomew's Hospital

Cryotherapy for prostate cancer

This is an exciting new development in the treatment of prostate cancer. It's minimally invasive, so has fewer complications than surgery.

Cryotherapy aims to eradicate prostate cancer by actually freezing the prostate cells.

Guided by ultrasound, the doctor inserts needles that produce very cold temperatures into the prostate gland. Freezing destroys the entire prostate, including cancerous tissue.

Cryotherapy for skin lesions and sun spots

Cryotherapy is also a treatment for skin lesions such as warts or skin tags, as well as sun spots, which are premalignant skin lesions caused by sun exposure.

The idea is to freeze the abnormal lesion and a small amount of surrounding normal skin. When the frozen cells subsequently thaw out, the skin cells essentially die and regenerate themselves over time. This all happens on the surface layer of the skin called the epidermis. 

There are many ways to carry out the treatment. The most common method uses liquid nitrogen, which drops the temperature of skin quickly to way below freezing. The nitrogen is applied through a 'gun' that sprays the liquid onto the skin, or it can be applied with a cotton bud or something similar.

After cryotherapy, blistering and redness often occur and the site can look as if it's been burned for a week or more. In time, new fresh skin cells grow and heal the area that was treated.