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Practice Commentary
Wm. MacMillan Rodney, MD
Arch Fam Med. 1993;2(3):275.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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AS FERRIS et al1 correctly state, much of what physicians do during cervical cryotherapy is empirical, and the lateral spread of freeze (LSF) is usually judged by the naked-eye rather than by some precise gauge. In this sense, the iceball gauge probably will be a very valuable tool for further research and training.
On the other hand, multiple studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of cryotherapy for the treatment of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. If the definition of success is a normal Papanicolaou smear 4 months following treatment, 90% of a wide variety of cryosurgery techniques achieve success. The iceball gauge might conceivably improve on this success rate. This is an interesting and valid speculation.
Technically, we do not teach the residents to perform cryotherapy under colposcopic visualization. I can see where the estimation error would be largest for a colposcopy-assisted technique. From my experience, this makes clinical sense. Under magnification
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
Memphis, Tenn
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