Heat-based Track Ablation Does Not Improve Bleeding Complications

Patients treated with cryoprobes with heat-based track ablation did not show improvements in bleeding complications after renal cryoablation compared with patients treated with cryoprobes with track ablation, researchers reported.

The study included 89 patients who were treated with percutaneous cryoablation for a solitary renal mass with the use of cryoprobes with track ablation (CwTA), and 178 patients who were treated with cryoprobes without track ablation (Cw/oTA). The first group underwent procedures from October 29, 2015 to May 18, 2017, and the second group underwent procedures from January 5, 2012 to October 28, 2015.

To evaluate bleeding complications, the Clavien-Dindo classification system was used to compare the matched patient groups using conditional logistic regression. Both univariate and multivariate models adjusting for imbalanced covariates were employed.

The analysis showed that 7 of the 89 patients (7.9%) whose renal cryoablation procedure used CwTA had major bleeding complications, compared with 13 of the 178 patients (7.3%) whose procedure used Cw/oTA. Using logistic regression analysis, the researchers adjusted for potential confounders and revealed that there was no link between major, minor, and overall bleeding complications and the type of cryoprobes used for treatment.

Additionally, changes in patient hemoglobin were also analyzed as a measure of bleeding. This analysis found that there was no significant difference in postprocedural change in hemoglobin for patients treated with the use of CwTA versus those were treated with Cw/oTA. There was also no significant difference in the total length of time of track ablation in patients with bleeding complications compared with patients without bleeding complications.

“The use of cryoprobes with heat-based track ablation did not decrease the incidence of bleeding complications after renal cryoablation compared with procedures performed without track ablation,” the researchers concluded.

Reference

Schmit CH, Callstrom MR, Boorjian SA, et al. A comparison of bleeding complications in patients undergoing percutaneous renal cryoablation using cryoprobes with and without heat-based track ablation. J Vasc Interv Radiol. 3 March 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvir.2017.11.009.