Thursday, March 4th 2010, 2:17 PM
The study, from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, described two different freezing, or cryoablation, techniques, ScienceDaily reports.
In the first method, the tumor was frozen quickly, in just 30 seconds. The second technique froze the tumor in several minutes. When results were compared with results from tumors that had been surgically removed, the mice treated with the 30-second freezing tecnique had fewer tumors that spread and a better survival rate, compared with the mice treated with either just surgery or the slower freezing technique. It appears that rapid freezing causes changes in the immune system that are able to kill the tumor, ScienceDaily reports.
Lead study author Dr. Michael Sabel said cryoablation has "strong potential as a treatment for breast cancer."
"Not only does it appear effective in treating the primary tumor with little cosmetic concerns, but it also may stimulate an immune response capable of eradicating any cells that have traveled throughout the body, reducing both local and distance recurrence, similar to giving a breast cancer vaccine," he said, according to ScienceDaily.
The study is online in Annals of Surgical Oncology.
Currently cryoablation is used to treat cancers of the kidney and prostate, plus various cancers that have spread to the liver and bone.
Dr. Sheldon Feldman, chief of breast surgery service at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia, calls the study promising but stresses that it is still in the research stages.
"It’s a methodology being considered promising but experimental," says Feldman. "The concept is appealing because it might allow a nonsurgical approach, but the challenge has always been, depending on the body part, to prove that the entire tumor has been destroyed."
For instance, he says, a doctor may opt to treat a small breast lump by inserting a tiny probe into it either using cold - cryoablation - or heat to destroy it. "You are hoping to destroy all of it but you don’t know if in fact you have destroyed it unless you do a second procedure which is to remove it surgically," Feldman explains.
This year, 192,280 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 40,610 will die of it, according to the American Cancer Society.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/03/04/2010-03-04_freezing_malignant_breast_tumors_helps_stop_the_spread_of_cancer_in_mice_study.html#ixzz0hJMap4n9
