Science on ice: Searching for new, safer ways to approach cryotherapy

  R. Matt Brothers isn’t an M.D., but he’s tweaking a medical procedure that could save life and limb. Brothers, an assistant professor in the College of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, along with Kenneth Diller, professor of biomedical engineering at UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering, has received a four-year grant to explore how a procedure called cryotherapy can be used to treat patients without causing them injuries or leading to amputation. Cryotherapy is the treatment of a physical ailment through the use of cold temperatures, and it can be as basic as having a football player dunk his leg in an ice bath after a game or the procedure can be employed in complex orthopedic surgeries. While the number of people who have benefited from cryotherpay is immeasurable, the procedure has significant downsides. “Currently, there are about 1,500 to 2,000 incidences of cryotherapy induced injury a year in the U.S. alone,” said Brothers, who specializes in cardiovascular physiology. “On the surface you might say, well, what’s the significance? It may seem like a trivial number, but you break that down and you have five, six, seven injuries a day.” These injuries range from tissue necrosis (the death ...