In recent years, advanced medical technology has revolutionized the healthcare industry by making surgeries easier to perform and make it more comfortable for patients. Cryosurgery or cryotherapy is one of them. It is the use of extreme cold produced by argon gas or liquid nitrogen to destroy abnormal tissue.
Cryosurgery is used for treating external tumours, such as those on the skin, inside the body, and in the bone. For internal tumors, argon gas or liquid nitrogen is circulated through a hollow instrument (cryoprobe) placed in contact with the tumor.
At Aashara Hospital, we offer state-of-the-art cryo freezing treatment where our gynaecologist uses MRI or ultrasound to guide the cryoprobe and monitor the freezing of the cells by limiting damage to nearby healthy tissue.
What is Cryo Freezing?
Cryo Freezing or Embryo freezing is also called embryo cryopreservation. In the process of cryo freezing treatment, the gametes (eggs or sperms) are frozen and stored for later use. This is done to help people with fertility and reproduction.
How to Cryofreeze Gametes?
We inject gonadotropins to help in developing several eggs in a single cycle (instead of the usual one egg). The moment most eggs reach the maturity stage, our specialists will extract all the eggs using the process of egg collection. For performing cryo freezing treatment, unique media solutions are used where these eggs are frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored in cryo containers.
Why Freeze Gametes?
Cryo freezing occurs often after people have treatments to try to get pregnant. During the procedures (IVF/ICSI) of cryo freezing treatment, the eggs are fertilized with sperm, and they sometimes create extra embryos. You may have to choose to freeze extra embryos and keep them for later use.
- Postpone or cancel implantation into the uterus after an egg is already fertilized.
- Requiring the delay of IVF to a later date.
- Used as an option in the case early attempts at fertility treatment fail.
- Choose to donate unused embryos to other people who are trying to get pregnant or to the researchers rather than destroying them.
Cryotherapy in Chennai is also used for fertility preservation. For example, a woman or person designated female at birth with cancer may want to save fertilized eggs before starting radiation therapy or chemotherapy if that treatment could affect their ability to get pregnant. A transgender man also might freeze gametes before taking hormones for the transition or before undergoing gender affirmation surgery.
Types of Cryo Freezing
Oocyte Freezing
Cryopreservation or cryo freezing treatment based on oocyte freezing helps women preserve their fertility or have a biological child at a later date. There is no duration for how long the eggs can remain frozen. As per the reports, it is said that a frozen embryo can be transferred even after ten years. An individual who requires oocyte freezing are:
- A woman who would want to delay her pregnancy.
- A woman who is about to undergo radiotherapy / chemotherapy for cancer.
- A woman who has a high likelihood of premature ovarian failure.
- A woman who objects to the storage of frozen embryos because of religious beliefs.
Sperm Freezing
Sperm Freezing helps to preserve male fertility for an indefinite period. The successful retrieval of frozen sperm in this cryotherapy in Chennai is close to about 99%. An individual who requires sperm freezing are:
- A man who is about to undergo chemotherapy/radiotherapy for cancer.
- A man who is about to undergo testicular surgery.
- A man who is unavailable during the IVF/ ICSI treatment cycle.
Advantages of Cryo Freezing
- Cryosurgery is less invasive than surgery because it involves only a small incision or insertion of the cryoprobe through the skin.
- There is minimal pain, bleeding, and other complications due to surgery.
- The cryo freezing treatment is less expensive and requires a shorter recovery time and a shorter hospital stay.
- The treatment can be safely repeated and can be used along with surgery, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and radiation.
- It can be used for patients who are not good candidates for conventional surgery because of age or other medical conditions.
- Also, it is used to treat cancers that do not respond to standard treatments.
Disadvantages of Cryo Freezing
Uncertainty regarding the long-term effects can be the major disadvantage of cryotherapy in Chennai. It may be effective to treat tumors that are seen with imaging tests, but it can miss microscopic cancer that is spread.