Kidney Health

Freezing Kidney Tumors

A new procedure that freezes kidney tumors may offer a safe alternative for patients who cannot undergo surgery, say researchers in a study of the new technique.

The procedure, called percutaneous cryoablation, is relatively non-invasive, especially compared to typical kidney surgery. During the treatment, a doctor inserts a thin probe though a small incision in the abdomen and locates the tumor. Then, this specialized probe emits a super cold gas that freezes the tumor in 30 minutes, killing all of the cells inside.

"We can literally watch the evolving ice ball grow…and encompass the tumor," said Dr. Thomas Atwell, study author from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

While recovering from standard kidney surgery can take several weeks, the non-invasiveness of this procedure allows recovery time to be quite short.

"The patient is dismissed from the hospital within 24 hours with a few Band-Aids," said Atwell.

Additionally, unlike kidney surgery, the freezing can be done multiple times. Those patients who have undergone previous kidney surgery, have multiple tumors and have other complications that make surgery difficult may benefit most from this alternative procedure, said Atwell.

How Effective is Freezing Tumors?
In a study, Atwell and colleagues performed this technique on 59 kidney tumors in 58 patients. In 95 percent of the patients, the tumors were completely destroyed by the freezing temperature. After nine-months there was no evidence that any of the tumors had grown. Only one patient suffered a side effect of serious bleeding.

Atwell cautions, however, that not all patients would quality for this type of surgery. If a kidney tumor is too close to another organ, the freezing temperatures could cause damage. Also, if the tumor is too large, the method may not work. In this study, the researchers were able to treat tumors up to 7 cm in size. More research is needed to determine how effective this treatment would be on larger tumors.