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Cryoablation as a Replacement for Surgical Resection in Early Stage Breast Cancer

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Abstract

With improvements in technology, freezing malignant tissue (cryoablation) as an alternative to surgery has been used to treat cancers of the skin, prostate, liver, lung, and bone. There is significant interest in cryoablation of breast cancer. Potential advantages over lumpectomy include the minimally invasive nature of the treatment, improved cosmetic results, patient comfort, decreased costs, and the possible immune response to the ablated tissue. Several pre-clinical and clinical studies have demonstrated both the feasibility of breast cancer cryoablation and the generation of an anti-tumor immune response, and clinical experience with cryoablation of benign breast tumors is growing. The ongoing American College of Surgeons Oncology Group Trial Z1072, a phase II trial examining the success of breast cancer cryoablation, is an important first step in possibly replacing lumpectomy with cryoablation for a subset of breast cancer patients. This article reviews the breast cryoablation literature to date and discusses the directions the field needs to move in to realize that goal.

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Michael S. Sabel reports no potential conflict of interest relevant to this article.

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  1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Michael S. Sabel

  2. 3304 Cancer Center, 1500 East Medical Center Drive, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Michael S. Sabel

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Sabel, M.S. Cryoablation as a Replacement for Surgical Resection in Early Stage Breast Cancer. Curr Breast Cancer Rep 3, 109–116 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12609-011-0044-6

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