Freezing Kidney Cancer: Hot Treatment Should Be New Gold Standard for Destroying Sm...( More Than 75 Percent of Patients Diag...),Health

More Than 75 Percent of Patients Diagnosed Have Small Renal Cell Tumors; Safe Interventional Radiology Treatment Shown Near 100 Percent Effective in Destroying Localized Tumors, Says Johns Hopkins Study

SAN DIEGO, March 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Freezing kidney tumors -- using a safe minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment that kills the cancer 100 percent effectively without surgery -- should be the gold standard or first treatment option for all individuals with tumors that are 4 centimeters in size or smaller. And, this treatment -- interventional cryoablation -- is a viable option for people with larger tumors, according to two studies presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 34th Annual Scientific Meeting.

"Interventional cryoablation is as effective as laparoscopic surgery (partial nephrectomy), the current gold standard treatment, and laparoscopic cryoablation surgery for treating renal cell carcinoma," said Christos Georgiades, M.D., Ph.D., interventional radiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md. "We can eliminate a cancer -- that once it metastasizes can be notoriously difficult to treat and has a low chance of cure -- with a simple outpatient procedure. Eliminating cancer at such an early stage is truly significant news for kidney cancer patients," he added.

It's important that individuals realize all their treatment options -- especially since the incidence of kidney cancer has been steadily increasing in this country over the past 30 years, said Georgiades. Approximately 54,000 people are diagnosed with kidney cancer each year -- with nearly 13,000 dying from it annually, according to recent statistics. Most people with this cancer are older, and the overall lifetime risk of getting kidney cancer is about 1 in 75 -- with men at higher risk than women. More than 75 percent of individuals who are diagnosed with kidney cancer have small tumors tha
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