Cryotherapy is a procedure that uses extreme cold (liquid nitrogen) to destroy tissue. It’s often used to treat skin lesions, which are skin growths or patches that don’t look like the skin around them. The lesions can be:
- Benign (not cancerous)
- Actinic keratosis. These are precancerous skin cancers that look like scaly patches on your skin, and they can turn into cancer in the future. Superficial skin cancer (skin cancer that’s on the surface of your skin).
Cryotherapy also helps save the area around the lesions and to reduce the scarring as much as possible.
You don’t have to do anything to get ready for cryotherapy, but you may need to remove makeup, lotion, or powder before your procedure.
Your doctor will then spray liquid nitrogen on the area being treated to freeze it.