What is Breast Tumor Ablation?
Breast tumor ablation is a new, minimally invasive treatment for breast tumors. It can be an alternative to surgery for people with a few, small tumors. It can also be an alternative for people who cannot have surgery. Breast ablation uses ice to destroy the breast tumor. The dead tumor turns into a scar over time.
How is a Breast Tumor Ablation done?
Medicine is given to make you drowsy. The clinician numbs the skin. The clinician uses ultrasound to guide a skinny wand through a pinhole in the skin and into the tumor. The tip of the wand freezes the tumor. After the ablation, the clinician removes the wand and puts a small bandage over the pinhole.
Breast Tumor Ablation
1. The clinician finds the tumor with ultrasound and numbs the skin.
2. They put the tip of a skinny wand inside the tumor and use it to freeze the tumor. Freezing and thawing take several minutes.
3. After the ablation, the clinician removes the wand and puts a bandage over the pinhole in the skin.
What are the risks?
Breast tumor ablation is generally a safe procedure when done by a specialist.
1 in 10-20 people have temporary pain, fever, or minor bleeding
Up to 2 in 100 people have major bleeding, infection, skin burns, or damage to surrounding areas
There is also a higher risk of leaving some of the tumor behind than with surgery.
What are the alternatives?
Your treatment options depend on your preferences and unique conditions. These include your overall health as well as the size, location and number of tumors that you have. Often you may benefit from a combination of these treatments.
Alternative 1 No treatment. The disadvantage of this is that the cancer may continue to grow.
Alternative 2 Surgery to cut the tumor out or remove the breast. This is more invasive but has the advantage of letting the pathologists make sure that the entire tumor was removed.
Alternative 3 Radiation therapy is a series of treatments to destroy the tumor with radiation beams from the outside.
Alternative 4 Medicines to treat the cancer or help the immune system fight the cancer.