Treatment and diagnostics cryosurgery in Graz, Austria

Cryosurgery in Graz is one of the younger and more progressive narrow fields of medicine aimed at treating benign and malignant neoplasms. It involves local and limited exposure of the tumor to refrigerants — liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide. Such treatment does not damage adjacent healthy tissues and does not have a negative systemic effect on the body. Most effectively it works for skin neoplasms, but in recent years cryosurgery has also been practiced for treating internal organs.

Before cryosurgery, thorough diagnostics and differentiation of the disease are carried out. For this purpose, local hospitals offer check-up programs that make it possible to determine the nature and extent of the problem accurately. During diagnostics, procedures such as digital dermatoscopy, CT, MRI, PET, ultrasound, angiography, elastography, biopsy, and others are used.

Cryosurgery is used in Austria to treat the following conditions:

• basal cell carcinoma (“white” skin cancer),
• melanoma,
• solar keratosis,
• cervical carcinoma in situ,
• precancerous conditions of the female reproductive organs,
• hepatocellular carcinoma and metastatic liver cancer (when surgery is unacceptable or impractical),
• retinoblastoma,
• any benign dermal tumors.

If internal organs are affected, the refrigerant is delivered to the tumor using a probe. Tissue cooling occurs alternately, and the cycle may be repeated up to 3–4 times per session. As a result of the procedure, tumor cells lose their blood supply and undergo necrosis.

Cryosurgical procedures are often combined with traditional treatment methods, especially in oncology. In the presence of metastases, chemotherapy is prescribed.

Doctors in local clinics work as a coordinated team to bring patients into prolonged remission, restore a good quality of life, and protect them from relapses and complications.