CarolinaEast Health System Offers Innovative Treatment Option for Patients with GI Malignancies

The gastroenterology team at CarolinaEast Health System announced they are now offering Steris’ truFreeze Spray Cryotherapy as a treatment option for patients with certain GI conditions. Using liquid nitrogen, aberrant benign and malignant gastrointestinal tissue can be cryogenically destroyed. This cutting edge technology was previously only available at a few tertiary academic facilities throughout North Carolina.

Spray Cryotherapy uses a catheter to apply extremely cold liquid nitrogen to the GI tract, flash freezing both benign and cancerous cells. The catheter is inserted through the scope, allowing direct endoscopic visualization and application to the afflicted tissue. The tissue is immediately frozen and left to defrost spontaneously. This cycle can be repeated to help eliminate selected cells without disrupting the extracellular matrix. This approach results in less scarring than other classic ablative procedures like radiofrequency ablation or argon plasma coagulation.

This is the only cryogenic system approved to treat both high and low-grade Barrett's dysplasia, dysplastic or pre-cancerous GI tissue, and benign and malignant lesions throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Furthermore, cryotherapy can be used to treat symptoms of early and late-stage GI malignancies that are not amenable to other treatments such as radiation or surgery. Additional applications include refractory benign esophageal strictures and gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE).

Dr. Sean McGarr, CarolinaEast Gastroenterology Clinical Director, is providing this new service at CarolinaEast Medical Center located at 2000 Neuse Blvd. in New Bern. He is an Advanced Therapeutic Endoscopist, working with ablative technologies for more than 20 years and launching several institutional programs that

have utilized both Radio Frequency Ablative Therapy (RFA) and Photodynamic Laser Therapy (PDT) ablation technology.

“I am proud to offer this new treatment to our patients in Eastern North Carolina that would otherwise have to travel to an academic center,” Dr. McGarr said. “This therapy is truly remarkable for patients with certain GI afflictions. TruFreeze has many applications and the long term data to support next level cryogenic therapy with far fewer possible post-procedure complications for our patients.”

Dr. McGarr, along with Dr. Barbara Salamon and Dr. Ruhin Yuridullah, provide care to patients needing gastroenterology services. Services are provided at both CarolinaEast Medical Center and CarolinaEast Gastroenterology located at 640 McCarthy Blvd. in New Bern.