Israeli ice device destroys breast tumors
US doctors are already using IceSense3 to freeze out benign growths quickly and painlessly. Next it could target small malignant tumors
a novel Israeli medical device has been changing the way American doctors remove fibro-adenoma tumors – benign breast lumps. Now an internationally renowned Japanese surgeon is testing IceSense3, made in Israel by IceCure Medical, to destroy small malignant tumors as well.
“This is the future,” CEO Hezi Himelfarb tells ISRAEL21c.
During an ultrasound-guided procedure, the IceSense3 probe penetrates the tumor and destroys it by engulfing it with ice. Needing only local anesthetic, the cryoablation process takes five or 10 minutes in a doctorÂ’s office, clinic or breast center, and the patient can get up and leave afterward. No recovery period or post-care is necessary.
Before the Israeli device got US Food and Drug Administration approval in December 2010, many women preferred to simply monitor harmless growths instead of having a surgical procedure that is expensive, time-consuming and painful. The new solution, which is quick and virtually painless with no scarring, offers a more attractive option.
“I don’t know any woman who wants to get up every morning and feel a lump in her breast even if she knows it was diagnosed as benign,” Himelfarb says. “It creates anxiety because it might potentially hide other tumors, and it is preferable to get rid of it.”
Freezing out malignant breast tumors
Of course, if a tumor is cancerous there is no option to wait and see. A surgical lumpectomy or mastectomy must be done.
Dr. Eisuke Fukuma, chairman of the Breast Center at Kameda Medical Center in Kamogawa City, Japan, was so intrigued by IceSense3Â’s potential in this area that he flew all the way to IceCureÂ’s Caesarea headquarters just for a four-hour meeting to lay the groundwork for clinical trials at his center.