Cryosurgery.
Cryosurgery is a surgical technique that employs freezing to destroy undesirable tissue. Developed first in the middle of the nineteenth century it has recently incorporated new imaging technologies and is a fast growing minimally invasive surgical technique. A historical review of the field of cryosurgery is presented, showing how technological advances have affected the development of the field. This is followed by a more in-depth survey of two important topics in cryosurgery: (a) the biochemical and biophysical mechanisms of tissue destruction during cryosurgery and (b) monitoring and imaging techniques for cryosurgery.
Rubinsky
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Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. rubinsky@newton.berkeley.edu
D000818:Animals; D001698:Biomedical Engineering; D016923:Cell Death; D003452:Cryosurgery / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D016343:Monitoring, Intraoperative; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured