Role Of Cryosurgery In Symptomatic Relief Of Patients With Inflammatory Dermatoses

Abstract

I N T R O D U C T I O N newline1 newlineINTRODUCTION newlineInflammatory dermatoses constitute a major portion of newlinedermatological diseases that need long term treatment regimen and newlinefollow-up. About thousand different types of Inflammatory newlinedermatoses have been described, which can be acute or chronic in newlinenature. An estimated 20 25% of the population is affected by newlineinflammatory skin dermatoses. [ 1 ] Chronic inflammatory dermatoses newlineusually persist for months to years and are often associated with newlinechanges in epidermal growth or dermal fibrosis. These diseases are newlineusually a major cause of physical and psychological morbidity in newlinethe patients. newlineCryotherapy is a controlled and targeted destruction of newlinediseased tissue by the application of cryogen [ 2 ] to cause tissue newlinenecrosis by rapid freezing.[ 3 ] [ 4] The pathological tissue destruction newlineoccurs as a result of rapid heat transfer from the tissues causing newlinetissue injury, vascular stasis and inflammation. Cryotherapy applied newlinelocally has been used in experimental treatments of inflammatory newlineand substantially pruritic skin diseases such a s psoriasis and prurigo newlinenodularis.[ 5 ] newlineI N T R O D U C T I O N newline2 newlineCryosurgery continues to occupy a very important position in newlinethe therapeutic area of a dermatologist. The advantages of newlinecryosurgery are that it is a very cheap and easy to perform newlineoutpatient procedure. newlineIn inflammatory dermatoses, cryotherapy is capable of newlineinducing normal re-epithelization following physical destruction of newlinelesions via reverse Koebner phenomenon. newlineIn the present age, cryotherapy occupies a very important newlineposition because of its advantage of being a short and suture less newlineprocedure with minimal risk of infection. newlineEven though cryotherapy has been approved as a treatment newlinemodality in certain inflammatory dermatoses, there are very few newlinestudies about their effectiveness, their role in reduction of newlinesymptoms and the extent to which they cause resolution of the newlinelesions. Hence, this study is to find out their efficacy in the newlinetreatment of inflammatory dermatoses.