Ablation Therapy
Ablation therapy is a treatment that uses heat or cold to destroy, or ablate, cancer tumors without the need for more invasive surgery. Special probes are used to deliver ablative treatments directly to the tumor. The surgeon relies on computer imaging to guide the probes to the correct position and monitor the progress of the treatment.
Advantages of ablation therapy
Ablative therapy has several advantages. It causes minimal pain and has a shorter recovery time than surgery or radiation therapy. In fact, it usually does not require an overnight hospital stay. It can also be used in conjunction with other cancer treatments.
Types of ablation therapy
Cryoablation
Cryoablation, also known as cryotherapy or cryosurgery, uses cold to freeze and kill cancer tissue.
Cryoablation can treat several cancers, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, kidney cancer, lung cancer, and various other soft tissue cancers. In these cases, it can be part of a plan to cure the patient.
It is also used to treat cancers that have spread, or metastasized, to the bone, soft tissue and, in limited cases, liver. If there are a small number of these tumors, the treatment can help cure the disease. When there are more metastatic tumors, the treatment is instead used to help slow or stop the cancer’s progress and relieve symptoms.
Learn more about cryoablation.
Radiofrequency ablation
A needle-thin probe delivers radiofrequency waves directly to the tumor, heating the tissue until it is destroyed. Radiofrequency ablation is best for smaller, localized tumors. RFA can be used to treat a variety of cancers:
- Bone cancer: RFA is mostly used to alleviate pain from cancer that has spread to the bone, usually from the colon.
- Liver cancer: Radiofrequency ablation can be combined with local chemotherapy to treat liver cancers.
- Lung cancer
- Kidney cancer
Learn more about radiofrequency ablation.
Microwave ablation
Microwave ablation uses electromagnetic waves to heat and kill small cancerous tumors. These waves are similar to the ones produced by kitchen microwave ovens but are aimed directly at the tumor.
Microwave ablation is used to treat cancers that start in the kidneys, liver and lungs. It is also used to kill tumors from a cancer that started in another part of the body and has spread, or metastasized, to the liver or lungs.
