User:Pedro Tapadinhas

Cryotherapy is the local or general use of low temperatures to treat a variety of benign and malignant tissue damage (lesions) during medical therapy. The term of “cryotherapy” came from the Greek cryo, meaning cold, and therapy, meaning cure. The use of this technic dates to as early as the 17th century.

The Medical use of cryotherapy is based on the tissue changes induced by subfreezing temperatures. The goal of this technic is to decrease cellular metabolism (growth and reproduction), greatly increasing the cell survivability. Eventually, with the use of even more extreme temperatures, the therapy can be used to destroy cells through the crystalization of the cytosol (intracellular fluid). The living tissue responds to extremely cold temperatures through ice formation both within cells and also extra cellular fluid. This subfreezing temperatures will eventually cause ice formation within small blood vessels, interrupting blood supply to the adjacent cells. A combination of these factors eventually destroys the living tissue through ischemia and necrosis, inducing inflammation as a response to the cell death. The malignant tissue can be therefore destroyed and easily removed, avoiding the need of an evasive procedure.

However, not all interventions are as drastic as to end in cell death. One of the main application of this technic consists on the decreasing of pain of the patient also helping on the decreasing of spasms. These results can be achieved by the exposure of the patient to extremely low temperatures during a really short period of time. This short period of time prevents the already explained crystalization of the cytosol, however, due to the release of hormones from the endocrine system of the human body, states of pain relief and muscle relaxation.

The leading technic branch on the use of cryotherapy is the Cryosurgery which will later be explained. However, eventually, other branches like “Cryogenic Chamber Therapy” and “Cryotherapy in Pain Relief” are also practiced and commonly used.

Practiced Techniques:

Sources: http://www.medicinenet.com/cryotherapy/article.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryotherapy http://www.webmd.com/cancer/cervical-cancer/cryotherapy-for-abnormal-cervical-cell-changes