Cryotherapy, the application of extreme cold to destroy abnormal or diseased tissue, is a proven science that has been used for decades to effectively ablate, or remove, diseased skin, breast, liver, cervical, prostate and lung tissue.
Spray cryotherapy is a procedure that delivers extremely cold liquid nitrogen through a catheter during an endoscopy (viewing the esophagus or other organ with a camera) to ablate, or destroy, unwanted tissue, including obstructive or diseased tissue. Cryotherapy ablates the abnormal tissue without burning or charring, allowing new healthy tissue to regenerate. “Spray” cryotherapy is versatile because it doesn’t require a device to directly touch the diseased tissue, enabling physicians to ablate tissue of varied shapes and sizes.
How spray cryotherapy works:
During an endoscopy, spray cryotherapy may be a simple outpatient procedure.
- A physician inserts a long tube with a camera on the end (an endoscope) through the mouth and throat to enable viewing of the area to be ablated.
- The physician then threads the truFreeze® spray catheter through the endoscope and targets the unwanted tissue.
- Using the truFreeze console to control the liquid nitrogen (cryogen) flow, the spray is then delivered through the catheter to flash freeze and destroy the targeted tissue.
- The area is allowed to thaw naturally (without actively warming). This freeze-thaw cycle is typically repeated several times as determined necessary by the physician.
This rapid freeze and slow thaw of tissue has proven to destroy the targeted cells and abnormal or obstructive tissue, providing patients with a safe, effective and well-tolerated surgical ablation option.
Benefits of spray cryotherapy
Spray cryotherapy offers numerous patient benefits:
- Spray cryotherapy is often an outpatient procedure
- Patients usually return home the same day and quickly resume normal activities.
- Spray cryotherapy is accepted and adopted in use at more than 50 respected medical centers in the country.
- Cryotherapy, the use of extreme cold in medical applications, is a proven technology that has been used for decades to treat diseased tissue in many parts of the body. CSA Medical’s patented spray cryotherapy has been used in clinical practice during more than 11,000 procedures and its safety, effectiveness and tolerability has been documented in medical literature.
- Spray cryotherapy is delivered by spraying liquid nitrogen inside the body in a manner that is similar to what dermatologists use outside the body. The spray catheter provides versatility and the ability to access to hard-to-reach places such as crevices that wouldn’t otherwise be touched by contact ablation (burning or freezing) methods.
- Spray cryotherapy is well-tolerated and offers an attractive alternative to other, more invasive ablation methods.