The simplest ever outpatient procedure which can be used as an alternative to surgery is breast cancer women getting their tumors frozen.

Through the technique known as image-guided, multiprobe cryotherapy, a group of researchers were able to kill breast cancer cells by freezing them.

About 13 women underwent this procedure were followed up for about five years and no recurrence of the cancer was found. They had different type of cancers that varied in sizes.

The analysis was presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 35th Annual Scientific Meeting in Tampa, Fla. The study reveals that even the largest breast cancers are curable by using this nonsurgical freezing technique says Peter J. Littrup, MD, who pioneered cryotherapy 20 years back.

A very low temperature gas is delivered to the tumor using needle-like probes, so that the cancer-killing is achieved.

Though, this technique has been in use for the past many years, but it is unsuitable for tumors larger than 1.5 centimeters in size.

Littrup says, "We've been using multiple probes for many years to treat prostate cancer with a minimum of five probes. So it just made sense to me to try multiple probes for breast cancer".