Can Cryotherapy Freeze Prostate Cancer To Death?

5 years ago | Men's Health

By Joy Stephenson-Laws, J.D., Founder

One of the things I keep in what I like to call my “proactive health toolbox” is cryotherapy. Also called ‘cold therapy’ or ‘cold treatment,’ cryotherapy involves exposing the body to extremely cold temperatures (usually below negative 200 degrees Fahrenheit). Think of it as a fancy ice bath!

There is:

Whole Body Cryotherapy. Benefits may include faster injury recovery, an immune system boost, relief from pain and soreness, reduction of inflammation in the body and more.
Cryo T-Shock. This treatment may jumpstart your weight loss efforts, reduce cellulite, improve circulation, tighten saggy skin and remove stubborn areas of fat.

In addition to these treatments, there are several other ways you can utilize cryotherapy. I’ve tried them all, and I recommend them all.

I’m confident in saying that I know a lot about cryotherapy, but I never really thought much about the use of cryotherapy to treat prostate cancer until I came across a recent article about it. With the exception of skin cancers, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men, according to the American Cancer Society. In addition to this, black men and Carribean men of African descent are more likely to develop prostate cancer compared to men of other ethnicities.

There are different grades of prostate cancer.

Some of your favorite stars including Robert De Niro, Sidney Poitier, Ben Stiller, Harry Belafonte and more have battled prostate cancer.

In addition to the many beauty and wellness benefits cryotherapy may provide, “Cryotherapy is a centuries-old technique that uses extremely cold temperatures to freeze and kill cancer cells,” according to a report from UCLA health.

“UCLA researchers have found that hemi-gland cryoablation, or cryotherapy, is an effective, primary treatment for men with clinically-significant, or grade 2, prostate cancer.”

(There are five grades of prostate cancer. Keep in mind cryotherapy might not be a viable option for someone with advanced prostate cancer).

The UCLA researchers looked at 61 patients with “intermediate-risk” prostate cancer. They had these patients undergo cryotherapy treatment and the results revealed that:

80 percent of the patients had no signs of cancer at six months and 18 months after the cryotherapy treatment.
In just 10 percent of the cases, there was minor residual cancer and a 10 percent failure rate among those who didn’t respond to the cryotherapy.

Cryotherapy minimizes damage to healthy tissues.

What’s so great about being able to treat prostate cancer with cryotherapy is that it kills cancerous cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissues.

More traditional methods to treat prostate cancer such as surgery or radiation therapy can be more invasive than cryotherapy. With cryotherapy, there is usually less risk of side effects such as erectile dysfunction and incontinence. Cryotherapy treatment may also come with less pain and a shorter hospital stay as well as less blood loss.

One study published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) involved 108 men who had been diagnosed with localized prostate cancer (which is cancer that is only in the prostate and has not spread). These men were treated with cryotherapy and had a medium follow-up of 61 months.

The researchers concluded that, “Cryotherapy is an effective and minimally invasive treatment for primary PC in well-selected cases, with low surgical risk and good results in terms of BPFS (biochemical-progression-free survival), cancer-specific survival, and overall survival.”

A lot more research is still needed about cryotherapy as a treatment for prostate cancer. Nevertheless, this is some credible evidence to suggest that it can be a great method of treatment depending on the condition of the patient.

With that said, note that there can be side effects with this form of treatment.

“Side effects from cryotherapy tend to be worse if it is done in men who have already had radiation therapy, compared to men who have it as the first form of treatment,” according to the American Cancer Society.

It really just depends on the man and the case, however, as always, prevention is better than cure.

Read here to learn about how you can help prevent prostate cancer. And to all the men out there, despite COVID-19, you cannot afford to avoid your physicals.

For more information about cryotherapy in general, check out Chilltonic.

Enjoy your healthy life!

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