The Conservative Management of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia: The Use of Cryosurgery and the Carbon Dioxide Laser

This study comprises 336 consecutive patients of whom 283 were candidates for conservative therapy involving either cryosurgery or the carbon dioxide laser for the management of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). A total of 152 patients were treated first in the series with cryosurgery followed by 131 patients in the laser group. Distribution of disease classification within CIN groups was similar. The overall persistent disease after one treatment was higher in the cryo group (14.5 per cent) as compared to the laser group (3.1 per cent). Of particular significance is the high percentage of failures in the cryo treated group (25.0 per cent) with CIN III disease as compared to the CIN III laser treated group (7.7 per cent). The high persistent disease rate observed in the CIN III lesions treated by cryosurgery suggests that this modality be employed with caution in this disease classification.