Cryotherapy is one of the most widely used treatments in physiotherapy. Traditionally, this type of therapy was used following acute trauma with the aim of reducing edema and pain through local application of ice. Recently, the concept of cryotherapy has undergone an evolution, especially in the field of sports medicine, with the use of Whole-Body Cryotherapy (WBC). Recent studies show that WBC can induce positive effects at the inflammatory, muscular, hematological, bone and hormonal levels. Moreover, benefiting from the therapy would appear to be not only athletes but also people with musculoskeletal pathologies. Therefore, the present article aims to summarize the biological effects induced by WBC.
The literature analysis was performed using the most important databases: PubMed, Scopus and PEDro.