SAN ANTONIO - Researchers in Brazil are using ultrasound to precisely locate breast lesions, then ablating them with percutaneous cryosurgery. Dr. Maira Caleffi, professor of surgery at the Breast Institute of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Allegre, discussed her group’s work last week at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
"Argon-based cryosurgery has proved successful in treatment of prostate and liver cancer," Caleffi said. "To date our team has treated more than 40 patients, mainly those with non-cancerous breast lesions."
The procedure begins with insertion of a needle into the breast, placing the tip inside the tumor. Then liquefied argon is pumped through the needle, and the tumor is frozen and destroyed in the minimally invasive treatment, Caleffi explained. The lesions are then monitored with ultrasound, clinical exams, and mammography.
"Ultrasound was much better than clinical examination or mammography in documenting the residual cryo-lesion for several months after the procedure," Caleffi said. The smaller lesions that were ablated with cryosurgery underwent resorption within three months; the larger lesions took about six months to be resorbed.
Initial studies were performed only on women with non-malignancies to determine practical procedures for using the cryosurgery system. The first 11 patients to undergo the procedure were scheduled to have mammoplasty so the treatment with the cryosurgery technique could be evaluated. Caleffi used NeoCure, a single-probe cryosurgical system manufactured by Sanarus Medical of Pleasanton, CA.
"We did core biopsies of the lesions, and we discovered that after we had performed cryosurgery in one case a malignancy was embedded in the lesion," Caleffi said. Following surgery, the researchers found that the cryosurgery had destroyed the malignancy as well as the fibrous mass originally targeted by the probe.
"No serious complications were noted," she said. "Both histological destruction and cosmetic results proved to be excellent."
Caleffi said that in the early experimentation with cryosurgery, the cold probe caused freezing burns to the skin of patients. By covering the exposed skin with cloth, those complications were prevented, she said.
She has also performed cryosurgery on a small group of women with small malignancies. Following lumpectomy, it appears the cancers were destroyed, she said.
"Results are promising and suggest that minimally invasive percutaneous breast cryosurgery should be studied on a larger scale," she said.
By Edward SusmanAuntMinnie.com contributing writer
December 14, 2000
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