A pioneering therapy against cancer will be studied by the Criocirugia Malaga Medical Team in collaboration with the Haakon Radge Foundation.

The therapy consists in freezing cancer cells using gas applied through thin, needle-like tubes which are introduced in the tumour until it is destroyed.

It eliminates the tumour naturally with ‘clean’ surgery which is minimally invasive and can be used with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

US Haakon Radge Foundation is the pioneering company in the development of this technique called ‘Cryo-Immunotherapy Modulation Therapy’.

So far the technique has only been used in the USA and the Philippines, but with encouraging preliminary clinical research results.

The therapy is mainly used to treat prostate and kidney cancer and is being applied in hospitals in Spain, Italy, Portugal and the UK.

Recent developments mean it can also be used to treat the lungs, bones, connective tissue, breasts, pancreas and liver.

The first successful cryosurgery operation in Europe was carried out on a 72-year-old patient with lung cancer last year, and since then it has been used in other operations.

Spanish Doctor Pedro Torrecillas, a urologist and advisor for the International Cryosurgery Society said “the search was a immune response to cancer is the Holy Grail of modern oncology” and “a step which can shed light in this dark tunnel we call cancer”.

The team from the International Centre for Multidisciplinary Cryosurgery Malaga “doesn’t intend to be a miracle cure” he said, but it is the latest treatment in a long line of research.

“Malaga wants to become the most advanced development centre in the whole of Europe for this technology” he said.

By Jennifer Leighfield