ABSTRACT
The use of cold temperature as a treatment of human tumors was first reported in 1851, when Arnott employed it to treat a uterine tumor.1 Over the ensuing 150 years, cryosurgery has developed into a powerful treatment modality, utilized by various surgical and medical disciplines for the treatment of a multitude of different pathologic tissues. The advent of high-quality imaging modalities including computed tomography and high-resolution ultrasound has resulted in an increased detection of small intra-abdominal masses, and has further enhanced the ability of cryosurgery to deliver focal treatment to target tissues, offering an alternative to extirpative strategies for local cancer control and palliation of advanced disease. While cryosurgery is rapidly gaining acceptance in the urologic community for the treatment of prostate and kidney cancer, the cryosurgical experience with a variety of other urologic tissues is in it infancy.
