Freezing a rare type of tumor with cryotherapy, until it disappears: this is the technique used successfully on six patients suffering from desmoid fibromatosis by a medical team of the Irccs Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli in Bologna, the first center in Italy to apply it to a disease that affects about 150 people a year in our country.
Desmoid fibromatosis is a rare benign tumor that grows aggressively in the tissues and can generate large masses that cause severe pain, compression of internal organs and motor difficulties. If treated surgically, it has a very high possibility of recurrence and, for this reason, it is faced with chemotherapy sessions to block its growth but the mass remains in this way and, with it, the problems it causes. From the first results of an American study by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a French multicentre study, the idea of using cryotherapy, already in use for other pathologies, was born: it is an interventional radiology technique that freezes and necrotizes the tumor so that the mass is progressively reduced until it even disappears.
The Rizzoli was therefore the first center in Italy to use cryotherapy for desmoid fibromatosis thanks to a clinical study by Dr. Costantino Errani, from the Orthopedic Oncology Clinic, conducted together with Dr. Giancarlo Facchini, from Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology. The first 6 patients treated come from all over Italy and the follow-ups show an immediate improvement.
"We treated the first person with this technique in July 2020, a year later the results are surprising - says Errani - The patient, a 39-year-old man who suffered from debilitating pain in the tumor growth zone, is doing well today and the mass has almost disappeared. This is thanks to a single cryotherapy session ". "With an investment of over 2 million - underlines the general manager of the IOR, Anselmo Campagna - we will soon equip ourselves with a new, latest generation equipment, which will allow us a wider field of action in cutting-edge treatments".