KILLING CANCER WITH CRYOABLATION DEBORAH MINORS
Advances in non-invasive interventional oncology mean that early cancer, which can progress to advanced life-threatening cancer, can now be frozen, burnt, microwaved, or otherwise obliterated.
Ice formation on two IceForce needles inserted into the tumour mass.
W
hen 75-year-old Kennethy ‘Kenny’ Siphayi went for a check-up after surgery to treat an enlarged prostate, he didn’t expect to have a renal cell carcinoma uncovered in his left kidney. Carcinoma is a cancer arising in the tissue of the skin or any of the internal organs. Kenny’s urologist referred him to Dr Charles Sanyika, Head of Interventional Radiology at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (WDGMC). Interventional radiologists diagnose and treat a range of conditions by inserting instruments – catheters, wires, needles, probes – from outside the body using imaging technology such as X-rays, CT scans and ultrasounds. Sanyika was preparing to pilot a pioneering technology called cryoablation – a first in southern Africa for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma. “Cryoablation is a treatment that had not been available in the country previously for patients with early renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer,” explains Sanyika. “It’s a minimally invasive intervention where we insert a needle [probe] into the cancer mass and create very low temperatures, between minus 20 and minus 40 degrees Celsius, which result in cell death.”
COLD-SHOULDERING CANCER
Ablation is the removal or destruction of a body part or tissue by freezing or by radiofrequency, heat, hormones, drugs, or surgery.
32
“Cryoablation is a treatment that had not been available in the country previously for patients with early renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer.” In Kenny’s case of cryoablation – from the Greek ‘cryo’ meaning cold – extremely cold temperatures are achieved by use of flow dynamics of the argon gas (a non-corrosive gas) to freeze and kill malignant cells in his kidney. Kenny recalls his urologist’s explanation of the procedure, about which Kenny was understandably originally quite anxious: “I must be honest with you, I was very, very worried, because from the experience of the first operation [prostrate] … they put in a needle…it was a little bit sore, so when he told me of this kidney operation, I was a little bit worried,” said the Soweto resident and father of four. Despite Kenny’s initial reservations, it transpired that he was an ideal candidate. “Tumour ablation, more specifically percutaneous cryoablation, has emerged as an alternative to surgery in the