Cryotherapy for Skin Tumor Ablation

Cryosurgery (cryoablation or cryotherapy) is a surgical technique in which localised ap- plication of freezing temperatures is used to ablate benign and malignant tumours [1, 2]. It was the oldest method to treat skin cancer in the 18th century [3]. There are various conventional techniques available to treat skin tumours such as surgery, chemotherapy, moh's surgery and radiation therapy [4]. Cryoablation is applied to different types of solid tumours such as prostate, liver, breast, kidney and pancreas [5-8]. This method has cer- tain advantages over other conventional methods and also posseses a few limitations which have to be overcome so that it can be used in regular clinical practise by the sur- geons. Thus, this chapter presents insight towards the historical and modern techniques related to cryoablation, skin cancer, the suitable method to treat skin tumours, i.e, cryo- gen spray, imaging technique to determine the evolution of the ice front, and numerical studies to solve the bio heat equation.