William Abramovits – Dermatological Cryosurgery and Cryotherapy (2016)

Описание

In dermatologic cryotherapy and cryosurgery, localized cold is used to
improve some skin conditions or destroy and remove abnormal tissue. It utilizes
cryogens to treat various benign non-cancerous, pre-cancerous, and cancerous
lesions.
The advantages of cryosurgery include high success rates, few side effects
of signifi cance, relatively short recovery times, ease of performance, and reasonable
cost. The disadvantages include frequent morbidity, lack of accurate
margin of destruction control, and operator dependency.
Solid scientifi c grounds nowadays support the indications for cryosurgical
and cryotherapeutic procedures, starting with understanding the mechanisms
of action, the cellular and vascular events that occur during the processes of
cooling and freezing, thawing and recovery, and ending with the statistical
evidence of cure or relief.
This book is titled Cryosurgery and Cryotherapy for Skin Diseases and
Conditions because in this way we address from the start semantic issues with
the word cryotherapy, which we consider to be misused interchangeably with
cryosurgery. For our purpose, the term “cryosurgery” is used to denote a primarily
destructive procedure involving temperature reduction (such as for
skin cancer), while “cryotherapy” is used to denote a therapeutic procedure
where the tissues are taken to low temperature but are expected to survive
(such as in pain reduction). A terminology compromise was accepted for
those procedures where mechanisms of action where destruction and the
involvement of immunity overlapped. We often respected the choice of words
by the chapter authors.
An example of cryosurgery is the treatment of epithelial skin neoplasms
by lowering them to temperatures that selectively destroy the cancer cells
within them, while their surrounding tissue is spared lethal damage. Examples
of cryotherapy include lowering skin temperature to induce anesthesia, preserving
a severed fi nger for reattachment, or cooling a wart for a few seconds
just to induce an immune response that hopefully will get rid of it.
It was 3 years ago that Mr. Grant Weston from Springer Publishers
approached me after my almost yearly lecture on cutaneous cryosurgery at an
Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology to suggest that I
write the “defi nitive textbook” on the subject. That year another textbook
(albeit not the defi nitive) on the same topic was just published, so I felt that
the timing was suboptimal; the seed had been placed in nourishing ground.
For the daunting task, it was tremendously gratifying to obtain the support of luminaries like Gloria Graham, MD; Renata Strumia, MD; and Yaron Har-
Shai, MD, who became my co-editors.
Gloria needs no introduction in the world of dermatology, and she is without
a doubt the Doyenne of Cryosurgery, having written many articles, edited
textbooks, lectured innumerable times all over the world, treated many, and
mentored a large cadre of practitioners of the trade. Dr. Graham kept motivating
us by example; although she struggled with health issues, she never quit
pressing us to edit and her many friends in the fi eld to contribute.
Renata was introduced to me by Grant. He suggested that I read a book on
cryosurgery she had just published in Italian. Dr. Strumia wrote that book
pretty much all by herself, and it was very much to my liking. I contacted her,
met her at congresses, learned fi rsthand of her competence, and asked her to
join us as editor and contributor; she did so with remarkable eagerness and
effi ciency.
Yaron’s name I kept running into while reviewing cryosurgery on PubMed;
Dr. Har-Shai is a plastic surgeon in Israel who has a keen interest in the reduction
of keloids and has developed innovative techniques. He was also a most
effi cient deliverer of contributions to our text, and he helped us recruiting
erudite authors for several chapters. I would also want to give a special thanks
to Dr. Robert Schwartz for his help in the fi nal stretch of this book. He dedicated
a lot of his time and his team’s effort to complete chapters for which we
had diffi culties fi nding willing contributors.
I am in great debt to my co-editors for their efforts and collaboration. They
all actively participated in the development of the content, wrote a great number
of the chapters, and helped me greatly in the selection of contributors of
the highest quality, expertise, and recognition in their respective fi elds.
Finally, I must acknowledge the valuable participation and intense dedication
and efforts of the team Alba Quiñones, MD (from Dermatology Treatment
and Research Center) and Michael D. Sova (Developmental Editor for
Springer Science) to whom this text owes its crystallization.
Hopefully the readers will fi nd this book to be of value, as complete as
possible, and enjoyable to read; it may not be the “defi nitive textbook” on the
subject, but hopefully that is because the fi eld continues to expand and
progress.