Radiotherapy in conjunction with superficial and intracavitary hyperthermia for the treatment of solid tumors: survival and thermal parameters

Abstract

Hyperthermia is an effective modality for the treatment of cancer, which is mainly used in conjunction with radiotherapy as this combined treatment offers a better clinical outcome. There are many ways that hyperthermia can be applied and depends on the kind of tumor of the patients. The great advantage of this method is that it is tolerable for the majority of patients without severe toxicity. Many clinical trials have been realized in order to prove that hyperthermia in addition to radiotherapy offers an advantage in the survival and local control of patients in comparison to radiotherapy alone. Many studies have also investigated if exists any correlation between the thermal parameters of hyperthermia and the clinical outcome. This is a review of these studies and it concerns superficial hyperthermia for superficial tumors-melanoma, head and neck, breast cancer-and intracavitary hyperthermia for rectal cancer, esophageal cancer and prostate carcinoma.

Hyperthermia-driven aberrations of secreted microRNAs in breast cancer in vitro

“…For hypoxia exposure, the cells were incubated in a hypoxic chamber (<1% CO 2 ) for 18 h overnight. For the induction of hyperthermia, the cells were incubated at 42 C for 2 h followed by a rescue incubation phase at 37 C for 4 h. The hyperthermia treatment regime was designed with regard to clinically relevant application protocols and transferred to a proven in vitro translational approach, reflecting well-established knowledge [17,[74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83]. Cells incubated under standard conditions in parallel served as controls.…”

Hyperthermia Is Now Included in the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines for Breast Cancer Recurrences: An Analysis of Existing Data

“…There are various methods of applying hyperthermia depending on the tumor location [5]. For tumors with a depth of less than 5 cm, such as breast cancer, superficial hyperthermia is mainly used [6]. Superficial hyperthermia in conjunction with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy has proven to be more effective than radiotherapy or chemotherapy alone [6,7,8].…”

“…For tumors with a depth of less than 5 cm, such as breast cancer, superficial hyperthermia is mainly used [6]. Superficial hyperthermia in conjunction with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy has proven to be more effective than radiotherapy or chemotherapy alone [6,7,8]. The reason for this seems to be that the mechanisms of action of radiotherapy and hyperthermia complement each other.…”

Microwave Hyperthermia in Conjunction with Radiotherapy in Superficial Tumours: Correlation of Thermal Parameters with Tumour Regression

“…On the other hand, despite the efficacy of the multimodal treatment -surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and molecular targeted therapies -more than 50% of patients suffering from HN cancer will relapse or will have a metastatic disease (8). Hyperthermia definitely has a synergistic effect with irradiation for superficial tumours related to breast or head and neck cancers (9).…”