Radical cystectomy is recommended as a curative treatment for advanced bladder cancer; however, more than half of these patients show distant metastasis as the predominant form of disease recurrence [11]. Although these therapeutic methods have achieved some positive effects, therapies for bladder cancer are far
from satisfactory. Argon–helium cryoablation, a new local ablative modality for the treatment of tumors, has been applied to various tumors, including hepatocellular carcinoma, renal carcinoma, prostate cancer, etc. There is a substantial body of evidence showing that percutaneous cryoablation treatment is very effective. In several studies, the local control rates of the treatment reached 83–95% on the basis of short-term follow-up [21]. In recent years, our group has successfully carried
out percutaneous cryoablation treatment for different kinds of tumors, such as hepatocellular DAPT carcinoma, renal carcinoma, prostate cancer, renal angiomyolipoma, lung carcinoma, pelvic neoplasms, pancreatic carcinoma, adrenal neoplasm, and sacrum and ilium tumors. In the present study, our aim was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CT imaging-guided percutaneous argon–helium cryoablation of muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Thus, we performed local tumor cryoablation for 32 patients with NU7441 muscle-invasive bladder cancer on the condition that the patients accepted the treatment. Our present data suggest that CT imaging-guided percutaneous argon–helium cryoablation of muscle-invasive bladder cancer is a successful technique. Follow-up CT was used as a 17-DMAG (Alvespimycin) HCl measure of success by comparing this with the control images. Tumors in all 32 patients enrolled in the trial were ablated successfully by a single session, except the first two patients who received two sessions of cryoablation. Follow-up data indicated that all patients’ tumors were completely resolved without enhancement, as observed by CT during the short-term imaging follow-up
period, except for three patients who were lost to follow-up. Our previous results have suggested that most residual mass is detected in the early stage after ablation, typically within 3 months of cryoablation. This finding is consistent with the observation of a prior study, which showed that 70% of tumor recurrence is detected within 3 months [12]. Evidence shows that the incidence of recurrent tumor beyond 3 months is low, occurring at a rate of only 1% [1]. Thus, our short-term imaging follow-up data could indicate that all patients in our study were cured. Potential complications of bladder cryosurgery include post-thaw hemorrhage, vesical fistula formation, and uroclepsia. Vesical fistula and uroclepsia did not occur in any patient in our study, as confirmed by CT scanning. There was some evidence to suggest that bleeding from the probe tract was limited by using small probes, which are available with this argon gas-based system [10]. 1.