What do you think of when you see a title like that? You may ask, “Is freezing a treatment?” Yes, the freezing we are talking about here is not the same as putting food in the freezer at home. Broadly speaking, cryotherapy is the controlled destruction or removal of living tissue using the freezing of local tissue. The reason why the tissue can be removed or destroyed is that freezing causes the live tissue to freeze instantly and the temperature drops to 0°C
When the temperature drops below 0℃, the water-containing tissue fluid inside and outside the cell forms ice crystals, and the structure of the cell is destroyed due to the increased internal and external pressure, resulting in necrosis of the tissue. The refrigerator we use in our daily life cannot do this. Of course, we do not want it to do this, because we need our food to “live” longer in the refrigerator, not to accelerate the destruction of it. After a freezing, in the process of tissue re-warming, the damaged tissue proteins have new antigenic properties, stimulating the body’s immune system, so that the autoimmune response. This is like we usually go to the hospital or the CDC to receive vaccines for active immunization, which can play a certain preventive role. Let’s talk about the common types of medical freezing agents. Generally speaking, there are two kinds: liquid nitrogen, a colorless and odorless liquid, not easy to burn and explosive, boiling point of -196 ℃
It is the most commonly used refrigerant in dermatology because of its low refrigeration temperature and safety in use. Dry ice, i.e., solid carbon dioxide, can be pressed into rods to treat skin damage, with a refrigeration temperature of -70°C
but less convenient to use. So what diseases can freezing be used to treat? The following categories can be broadly divided: 1, surface lesions: (1) benign skin tumors: various warts (including common warts, plantar warts, flat warts, etc.), freckles, pigment spots, nodular itchy rash, scabies nodules, lid warts, sweat duct keratosis, sweat duct tumors, small strawberry hemangioma, etc. (2) Malignant skin tumors: heliokeratosis (precancerous lesions), Bowen’s disease, basal cell tumor, squamous epithelial carcinoma, etc. 2. Radical treatment of benign tumors of parenchymal organs and palliative treatment of malignant tumors: lung cancer, liver cancer, kidney cancer, etc. that cannot be surgically removed by CT localization and percutaneous puncture under B-ultrasound guidance. (1) Tracheoscopic treatment of benign and malignant tumors originating from the large airways. (2) Gastroscopic treatment of benign and malignant tumors and polyps originating from the esophagus, stomach, duodenum, colon and rectum. 4. Intraoperative freezing: in open-chest and open-abdomen surgery, freezing under direct vision to treat unresectable lung cancer, liver cancer, kidney cancer, etc. 5. Intercostal nerve freezing for pain relief: After conventional open-chest surgery, the intercostal nerve is freezed at the level of the small head of the rib bone by selecting the upper and lower incision and the intercostal area where the incision is located respectively before closing the chest. The conduction pathway of the nerve is blocked to achieve postoperative pain relief. This method of pain relief is reversible, and the nerve conduction will gradually return 1 to 3 months after surgery. 6.Effectively remove the foreign body accidentally sucked or swallowed with the help of endoscope. Next we will look at the most likely to contact the usual because of skin lesions to receive cryotherapy precautions: local pain caused by freezing, generally tolerable, 1-2 days later can be self-relieved, if individual pain is severe can not be tolerated, oral sedative painkillers.
After treatment, local tissue swelling, blisters, blisters and even blood blisters, is the reaction of freezing, can be absorbed by itself, if necessary, under the aseptic operation of herpes extraction. Keep the wound surface clean, it does not matter if the blister does not break to touch water for a short time, but if the blister breaks, we should avoid water temporarily to keep the wound surface dry. If necessary, topical anti-inflammatory ointment can be used. Finally, we should also talk about the main contraindications of cryotherapy. Cold erythema multiforme, cold urticaria, cryoglobulinemia, old and weak people who cannot tolerate it, and a few scarred people are not suitable for cryotherapy.