| We keep liquid nitrogen at the surgery in a specially designed container. Liquid nitrogen is very cold at a temperature of – 196 degrees Celsius. It will therefore freeze any tissue that it comes into contact with, similar to a thermal burn. It is applied to skin conditions via a specially designed pressurised flask with a spray effect. A variety of nozzles are available depending upon the type of condition being frozen.
The application of this very cold spray causes cell damage of the particular lesion it is applied to. Commonly it is used for the treatment of warts and verruca’s. It does not actually kill the viruses that cause these but kills the cells that they are living in.
The spray is applied from 10 – 30 seconds. Occasionally this maybe repeated depending upon the lesion. It can be rather uncomfortable.
The number of treatments will vary depending upon a number of factors such as size and type of lesion.
Following cryotherapy the lesion may gradually discolour and hopefully fall off or at least shrink.
Compared to other treatments cryotherapy is usually an effective and least time consuming way of removing skin lesions.
Typical skin lesions that are suitable for treatment with cryotherapy:-
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