Cryoablation Therapy

Cryoablation therapy can be combined with immunotherapy treatment as an effective way to treat certain types of cancers. It can go by many different terms, including cryoablation immunotherapy and cyroimmunotherapy. With cryoablation therapy alone, there is a cryoablation immune response that creates a result like a cancer vaccine. By freezing the tumor and allowing it to stay in the body, it then not only destroys the cancerous cells but also releases tumor antigens exposed to the immune system. However, cryoablation alone can also produce an inadequate immune response depending on different factors.

 

The effectiveness of this auto-vaccine in human breast cancers remains unproven and might not adequately prevent recurrence of the cancer in other parts of the body. Consequently, you should not abandon traditional anti-cancer medications  or radiation with the hope that cryoablation will make them unnecessary.  In fact, the anti-cancer immune response of cryoablation might be enhanced by some anti-cancer medications. 

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While a cryoablation immune response can happen some of the time, the process alone isn’t enough to induce a response. The immunotherapy effect of cryoablation of the tumor is due to the release of the intracellular tumor proteins from inside the tumor cells. The released tumor protein then activate the anti-tumor T-cells that destroy remaining malignant cells. The cryoablation of the tumor gives an anti-tumor immunological response. However, there are various chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments that can be combined with cryoablation to get the desired anti-tumor response. There is the injection of immunomodulating drugs and vaccine adjuvants that are injected into part of the tumor immediately following the procedure. There is also the option of the administration of immune enhancement therapy, including CIK cell therapy and dendritic cell therapy. There will be different immunotherapy options that are currently under investigation.

 

There are plenty of things to keep in mind when determining if cryoablation therapy along with immunotherapy will work. For example, there are plenty of differences that exist across tumor lesions and treatment that works on a group of metastases may not be effective for other lesions. Tumor biopsies may be taken at the treatment site at the time of cryoablation to help adapt any subsequent treatments accordingly.