Abstract
Medical applications for cryobiology are involved in preservation (cryopreservation) and ablation (cryosurgery). In organ preservation for transplantations, it is known that lower temperature enable the biological tissue to be preserved viable for longer time under ischemic conditions. It is thought that freezing preservation is better than cold. However, water surrounding tissue crystallizes under freezing point and the freezing process itself damages organ tissue chemically and physically. Currently for the reason, freezing preservation is not applied to the clinical organ transplantations. In contrast, cryosurgery uses the destruction mechanism of the freezing process to the undesirable tissue such as neoplasm. Medical surgeons require understanding the tissue destruction mechanism during freezing process with heat transfer and thermal gradients of the cryolesions, and biological response of the tissue for complete and safety ablation. But most surgeons have performed the cryosurgery without detail knowledge so far. Cryobiology needs extended knowledge over biophysics, biochemistry, bioengineering, and biomedical fields. This paper will present cryobiological review from the standpoints of medical researchers.
