This term refers to freezing a
skin lesion with liquid nitrogen. When liquid nitrogen evaporates it cools down to -196 degrees Celsius. Such low temperatures allow skin tissue to be destroyed while leaving the lower skin layers intact. Normal reactions to cryotherapy include redness, swelling, sometimes blistering followed by crusting. It may lead to scarring and/or pigment changes depending on the duration of freezing.
Cryotherapy can be used to treat precancerous lesions such as
actinic keratosis, and
Bowen’s disease, occasionally for superficial subtypes of
basal cell carcinoma and for benign conditions such as viral warts and seborrhoeic keratoses.
For more information
https://www.dermnetnz.org/