Cryogenic Surgery

FOR more than a century there have been sporadic reports indicating the potential usefulness of cooling or freezing biologic tissues to produce controlled physiologic inhibition or anatomic destruction.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Heretofore, however, the lack of adequate instrumentation has prevented the realization of the potential value of extreme cold as a surgical tool.It is the purpose of this report to describe a complete cryogenic surgical system for cooling or freezing localized areas of biologic tissue. This system encompasses all the characteristics essential for the use of extreme cold for production of physiologic inhibition in tissues such as brain, endocrine organs or heart . . .