Cryotherapy in Chest Medicine Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1992 edition

Cryosurgery is a method of therapy that uses treatment could be viewed easily and at frequent freezing temperatures to achieve specific effects intervals. Though endoscopic cryosurgical tech­ on tissues. Depending upon the technique of niques were used for the treatment of prostatic treatment, the tissue response varies from an in­ disease and of laryngeal disease, the restricted flammatory reaction, which is associated with a visualization of the lesion, as well as some limi­ minor freezing injury, to the destructive effect tations in apparatus, precluded continued de­ which is characteristic of severe freezing injury. velopment at that time. In the following years, some early uses of Cryosurgical treatments require the use of special apparatus cooled by cryogenic agents to produce cryosurgery have fallen into disfavor, mostly be­ the freezing temperatures necessary in the tissues. cause of effective competing methods of thera­ As with any other method of therapy, the physi­ py, but other uses of cryosurgery have become cian must place emphasis on the selection of ap­ part of standard medical practice, as demonstrat­ propriate patients, on the careful determination ed by incorporation into textbooks of surgery and its specialities. Today, the commonly accepted of the nature and extent of disease, and on pre­ cise cryosurgical technique in order to achieve uses of cryosurgery are for the treatment of many types of skin disease, including cancer, for the good results.