Investigation of cell-vitality in tumor specimen after cryosurgical operations

Carcinomas of the gastro-intestinal tract were resected in 6 patients either by cryosurgery or in the usual, conventional manner without freezing the tumor. Cells from the tumorsections in each case were isolated by the use of enzymes and were examined for vitality following trypan-blue vital staining. In 5 out of 6 cryosurgical cases fewer than 10% of the cells were vital compared with sections from nonfrozen specimen. In one case the freezing method (cryosurgery) did not have any influence on the cell vitality. The cell-damaging effect of cryosurgical procedures proven in vitro suggests possible additional therapeutic effects in tumor-patients. Cryosurgery has proven useful in the treatment of hypertrophic prostates, when an unusual risk was involved. Recently it has also been used in the surgical treatment of carcinomas of the skin, the bladder and the cervix (1; 2, 3, 6). Approximately a year ago we started to use cryosurgery in our hospital in inoperable abdominal tumors. After freezing the primary tumor or its metastases a massive breakdown of the remaining tumor in-situ occurs, which might produce a palliative effect. As a result of freezing the tumor before resection, we expect a decrease in the spread of tumor cells during surgery and a stimulation and mobilization of specific immune response against the tumor (5). In order to increase our knowledge of the biological behaviour of cryosurgically treated tumors, we investigated in the present study teh cell-vitality in tumor tissues before and after cryosurgery.