“I’m not a fan of cryotherapy,” says Dr. James Brooks, Chief of Urologic Oncology at Stanford Medicine. “You’re freezing the prostate and that leaves a lot of dead tissue. I’ve had men come in with severe infection of the dead tissue in their prostate that are absolutely miserable.”
Cryotherapy is the freezing of cancer cells and it’s most often used for early prostate cancer. Dr. Brooks says although cryotherapy is often thought to have less side effects, they are basically the same as the reactions to radiation and surgery.
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The American Cancer Society says “most doctors do not use cryotherapy as the first treatment for prostate cancer, but it is sometimes an option if the cancer has come back after radiation therapy.”
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