Cryotherapy is a treatment where your healthcare provider applies extreme cold to freeze and destroy abnormal tissue. To create this severe cold, your provider will use a substance like liquid nitrogen or argon gas.
Cryotherapy can be used to treat a variety of skin conditions and some cancers, including prostate and liver cancer. This therapy can treat tissue externally (on the skin) and internally (inside the body).
This treatment can also be called cryoablation.
Your provider might recommend cryotherapy for:
During cryotherapy, the healthcare provider applies extreme cold to abnormal tissue. Cells can’t survive this severe cold and die after treatment.
Your healthcare provider can use a few different substances to create the intense cold used in cryotherapy. These substances can include:
Cryosurgery is a minimally invasive treatment. Compared to traditional surgery, it usually has less pain and bleeding and a lower risk of damaging healthy tissue near the abnormal cells.