Cool treatment

Fibroadenoma of the breast is a common benign lesion that can affect women during their reproductive years. Despite the fact that they are not life threatening, fibroadenomas can grow up to 4cm in diameter, cause physical deformity and may produce discomfort or emotional distress in those women who are afflicted with them.

Traditionally, such lesions have been surgically removed at the time of an open biopsy – but this is a lengthy and costly option, because patients need to undergo treatment in a hospital operating room under anaesthetic.

Recently, however, a faster, less expensive alternative to the procedure has been deployed that uses cryoablation guided by ultrasound to selectively freeze and destroy tissue in the target area. This treatment takes approximately 10 to 30 minutes, depending on lesion size, and can be performed in a doctor’s office under local anaesthesia.

While the idea seems simple, the systems engineers at Sanarus Medical, a small operation based in Pleasanton, California, were faced with a tough challenge – they had just four months to develop a prototype system that could perform such a procedure.