Cutaneous cryosurgery in the United States

Background: Cryosurgery is a common treatment modality for many dermatological conditions; however, the extent to which it is used and by which medical specialties is not well characterized. Objective: To determine the rates of cryosurgery use over time, the top dermatoses treated by cryosurgery, pa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of dermatological treatment 2016-01, Vol.27 (1), p.91-94
Main Authors: Farhangian, Michael E., Snyder, Alyson, Huang, Karen E., Doerfler, Laura, Huang, William W., Feldman, Steven R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actinic keratosis
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
aging
Cross-Sectional Studies
Cryosurgery - statistics & numerical data
cryotherapy
Health Care Surveys
Humans
Keratosis, Actinic - surgery
Middle Aged
seborrheic keratosis
skin cancer
Skin Diseases - surgery
United States
verruca
warts
Young Adult
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Summary:Background: Cryosurgery is a common treatment modality for many dermatological conditions; however, the extent to which it is used and by which medical specialties is not well characterized. Objective: To determine the rates of cryosurgery use over time, the top dermatoses treated by cryosurgery, patient demographics and the rate at which practitioners used cryosurgery. Methods: We used the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) from 1993 to 2010 in order to quantify the use of cryosurgery in outpatient offices. For visits where cryosurgery was utilized, the leading diagnoses, treating physician specialties, and patient ages were tabulated. Results: Cryosurgery was most commonly used for treating actinic keratoses (48% of visits), seborrheic keratoses (25% of visits) and verrucae (21% of visits). Dermatologists performed 82% of all cryosurgeries, followed by family/internal medicine physicians (13.6%) and pediatricians (2.8%). The use of cryosurgery for these dermatoses has increased over time (p 
ISSN:0954-6634
1471-1753
DOI:10.3109/09546634.2015.1054780