Most solid kidney tumors are malignant. For many years the only effective therapy of renal tumors has been surgical removal of the tumor. Thanks to the widespread use of new imaging modalities, most of the kidney tumors are currently detected at an early stage, while the tumor is small and confined to the kidney.
Many small kidney tumors are slow growing tumors, and when detected at an old age they are most probably no threat to patient’s survival. In such cases or if other medical problems prevent surgery, we offer another approach for the treatment of small renal tumors: cryotherapy or freezing of the kidney tumor.
Cryotherapy may be done by minimally invasive surgery such as the laparoscopic approach, using a few, very small incisions for the insertion of a laparoscopic television camera and other instruments into the abdomen. The kidney tumor is exposed by a minimal procedure and then freezed and thawed with special electrodes. The procedure may also be done via a percutaneous approach, where the electrodes are inserted through the skin, directly into the tumor under the guidance of an ultrasound or MRT equipment.
The great advantage of the technique is that it does not require a large abdominal incision used for a partial nephrectomy, an operation for the removal of small kidney tumors.
Cryotherapy of kidney tumors has been used in the United States during the last 5 years and the results were very good. In 92% of the cases the tumors were completely destroyed by the technique with no significant side effects to the patients.
For more information call
Prof. Dov Pode, Tel: 02-6776874.