Cutting Edge Treatment Cryoablation Extends Life of Mesothelioma Patients With Otherwise Poor Prognosis

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Cryoablation is an alternative minimally invasive procedure, showing promise with mesothelioma patients. It uses controlled freezing to kill small cancer tumors in a relatively safe and quick manner. With the use of a large needle, compressed argon gas is applied to the targeted tissue, freezing the cells. Thereafter the tumor cells die.

Used with standard therapies for mesothelioma, cryoablation can effectively improve both survival and quality of life. It can be used on surrounding small lesions in order to make a patient eligible for future surgery or it can be administered to localized recurrences of disease post-surgically. It can also improve the patient’s quality of life when used in a palliative manner to control the pain associated with invading tumor.

One of the important features of cryoablation, is that the treatment can be performed numerous times, in the even the tumor reemerges.  Notably, cryoablation also activates a person’s immune system to fight future tumors.

Currently only a handful of centers specialize in the use of cryoablation in the management of mesothelioma, most notably diagnostic radiologists, Dr. Fereidoun Abtin and Dr. Robert Suh at UCLA.