KIDNEY CANCER
CRYOTHERAPY
Cryosurgery Procedures
Follow-up Care for Patients
Undergoing
Renal Cryotherapy Ablation
Recovery time and specific follow-up care will vary significantly depending on the approach, technique, and type of anesthesia used for the renal cancer ablation. However, there are some things that can be expected immediately post-procedure regardless.
After the procedure, the patient is taken to a recovery area, where vital signs and urinary output will be closely monitored. In most cases, some pain relief is necessary after open or laparoscopic cryosurgery. Many patients experience very little discomfort after an image-guided percutaneous procedure, but each case is treated on an individual basis with the goal of keeping the patient as comfortable as possible.
Patients remain in the hospital until they are eating, drinking, walking, and urinating satisfactorily. Again, depending on the approach, technique and anesthesia, this can vary from several hours, as in the case of an uneventful percutaneous kidney cryoablation, to a couple of days, in the case of cryosurgery performed during an open surgical procedure. Of course, in the unfortunate case of complications from the procedure, it is possible that a longer hospital stay may be necessary.
On release from the hospital, the patient’s discharge orders will include instructions to be vigilant for signs and symptoms of post-procedure complications such as wound infection. Signs of an infection in the urinary tract such as fever or chills, nausea, vomiting, cloudy or foul-smelling urine, and persistent abdominal or flank pain are also reasons for the patient to contact the physician.
There are several effective treatment protocols and standards of care that physicians follow for kidney cancer patients. The physician will also take into account an individual patient’s unique circumstances before determining an ongoing course of care. In general, a patient can expect to see the physician approximately one week after the procedure. At that time, the physician will have received all final pathology reports, if applicable, and will have evaluated all pre- and post-procedure testing and can discuss future treatment and prognosis with the patient.
Most centers also perform a CT or MRI scan of the liver within a few hours to a week after cryosurgical ablation to make certain that all tumor tissue has been destroyed, and also to detect any complications. A radiologist will interpret the CT or MRI scans and determine whether the targeted cancer appears to have been eliminated. If so, the patient will usually have repeat CT scans every three months to check for new or recurrent tumors.
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