Doctors put breast cancer on ice to avoid surgery

In In The News by Barbara Jacoby

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From: wreg.com

One surgeon in Memphis is doing trials on a breast cancer treatment that could keep some patients out of the operating room.

The West Clinic is among about 20 sites across the country where doctors are using liquid nitrogen to freeze tumors and kill diseased cells.

“This technology is the newest version that takes a probe that goes into the center of the breast cancer and liquid nitrogen causes a rapid freezing of the tumor from the inside out.  It creates a rapid ice ball that surrounds the breast cancer to about one centimeter beyond the limits of the cancer,” said Dr. Richard Fine.

The IceSense3 Technology by IceCure has been used for several years to treat all types of cancers.

The latest trials are focusing on women over 65 with smaller tumors that would normally respond to other treatments like lumpectomies.

“This is the first clinical trial where a tumor is actually being left in.  Most of the other trials looking at effectiveness would freeze the tumor, wait a period of time and then take the area out to show all the cancer was killed.  So, this is the first time we are actually killing the cancer and leaving it in and letting the body reabsorb the cancer,” said Dr. Fine.

Jean Raymond is taking part in the trials.

At the age of 77, she is battling breast cancer for the second time.

Last time, she had a lumpectomy and followed it with radiation treatments.

She described the IceSense3 procedure as something as simple as a visit to the dentist office.

“I didn’t have hardly any discomfort at all and any scar and I was able to get up and go about my business,” said Raymond.

The treatment took less than 30 minutes and surgeons said there was little to no recovery time.

Trials were done on around 160 woman.

If the results are good,  doctors said they would look at treating more aggressive cancers.