Cancer

　　 Date and Time: May 11, 2008 at 10:30pmInterviewee: Dr. Franco Lugnani- President of the International Society of Cryosurgery; at the Sheraton Kowloon Hotel in Hong Kong. Dr. Lugnani is a medical specialist from Italy.Interviewers: A reporting team from Malaysia Press, at New Pearl River Hotel in Guangzhou, ChinaHo Sin Khee (The Sin Chiew Daily)Nicholas Lo Hua Kuong (The Borneo Post)Lim Wey Wen (The Star)Siaw Hui Meng (The International Times)Chong Suk Chin (The See Hua Daily News)Ong Eng Leong (The Long Life Magazine)Mode of Interview: TeleconferenceReporter: Good evening, Dr. Franco Lugnani. We are a team of reporters from Malaysia Press. During the past few days, we visited Fuda Cancer Hospital- Guangzhou and conducted interviews there. We held a forum with some patients in the hospital from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Denmark, Spain and China. These patients spoke highly of the advanced technologies and high quality services in Fuda Cancer Hospital, especially their expertise in cryosurgery for the treatment of cancers. As the president of the International Society of Cryosurgery, would you talk about the use of cryosurgery for treatment of cancers?Dr. Franco Lugnani: I am most pleased to attend this interview. Initially I was supposed to meet all of you in Guangzhou. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to obtain the visa in time. As a result, I had to stay in Hong Kong for the past few days. Fortunately, we can hold this teleconference together with the advancement in telecommunication.Cryosurgery involves the application of freezing technology to destroy targeted cancerous cells. In fact, a few thousand years ago, people in ancient Greece used some freezing techniques to treat certain diseases, including tumors. The actual development of the modern cryosurgery just started in 1990’s. Cryosurgery is mainly used for the treatment of prostate cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer etc. in America and Europe. Currently, the use of percutaneous cryosurgery for the treatment of prostate cancer has become routine. I have had the experience by myself for more than one thousand cases. China has attained significant achievements in percutaneous cryosurgery, especially at Fuda Cancer Hospital in Guangzhou. Their experience performing several thousand cases of cryosurgery is amazing compared to their counterparts in the West. During the 14th World Conference on Cryosurgery at Beijing in November 2007, the amount of cryosurgery cases [Fuda] reported was the most among all countries. During the conference of new techniques for cancer treatment at Jakarta, Indonesia this March, a demonstration on percutaneous cryosurgery operations for lung cancer by Dr. Lizhi Niu received high praise. It was really impressive. Recently, I invited both Professor Kecheng Xu and Dr. Lizhi Niu to Spain and Italy for an academic exchange program, and all of our counterparts in the West understood cryosurgery techniques and the important role in cancer treatments via their excellent experiences.