HYPERTHERMIA

Heating up and killing cancer cells!

Hyperthermia therapy is a type of treatment in which body tissue is exposed to high temperatures (up to 106ºF), to damage and kill cancer cells, or to make cancer cells more sensitive to the effects of radiation and certain anticancer drugs. Local hyperthermia treatment (heat applied to a very small area, such as a tumor) is a well-established cancer treatment method with a simple basic principle: If a rise in temperature to 106ºF can be obtained for one hour within a cancer tumor, the cancer cells will be destroyed. Primary malignant tumors have a bad blood circulation, which make them more sensitive to changes in temperature.

Due to its increasingly impressive research and clinical track record, it is considered as "main-stream" as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, and is now recognized as the "fourth modality" in approved cancer treatment. However, due to its relatively recent acceptance in major medical circles, it is not well known - yet it is a treatment with genuine promise.

How Hyperthermia Kills Cancer Cells

Hyperthermia destroys cancer cells by raising the tumor temperature to a "high fever" range, similar to the way the body uses fever naturally when combating other forms of disease. Because the body’s means of dissipating heat is through cooling from blood circulation, sluggish or irregular blood flow leaves cancerous tumors vulnerable to destruction at elevated temperatures that are safe for surrounding healthy tissues with normal, efficient blood cooling systems.

Scientists attribute the destruction of cancer cells at hyperthermic temperatures to damage in the plasma membrane, the cytoskeleton and the cell nucleus. Cancer cells are vulnerable to hyperthermia therapy particularly due to their high acidity caused by the inability to properly expel waste created by anaerobic metabolism. Hyperthermia attacks acidic cells, disrupting the stability of cellular proteins and killing them.

Oncological Action of Hyperthermia
1. Greater heat sensitivity of neoplastic tissues to hyperthermia due to its chronic ischemia and hypoxia and acid pH.

2. Lethal effect on tumoral cells at a temperature of 43ºC., depending on the application time. The application of repeated moderate hyperthermia at between 39 - 41 ºC can also produce a temporary growth stabilisation.

3. Prolongated action of the temperature inside the tumour - due to lower thermal dissipation caused by a chronic ischemia, as a result of its reduced vaso-regulation mechanisms -, that increases to an even greater degree of its ischemia, hypoxia and acidity typical of tumour tissue.

4. Alterations in the cycle of the neoplastic cells, which lead to the blocking of the mitosis in part of the cell population. The blocking seems to be due to a disruption in the synthesis phase of DNA (S-phase of the cell cycle).

5. Hyperthermia has a more marked action on the central core of tumour -necrotic, ischemic, hypoxic and with low pH-, which is less sensitive to radiation. In the tumour periphery -vascularized and with greater cell growth-, radiotherapy is more effective. The benefits of a combined action of Hyperthermia and RT and/or ChT were demonstrated many years ago.

6. It can facilitate apoptosis mechanisms, self -destruction of cells, which are normally absent in tumoral cells.

7. The "athermic" effect on cell cultures has shown a significant decrease of the neoplastic cell population and no undesirable effects on normal cells. This could be related to changes of the electrical potential of the neoplastic tissues.

HYPERTHERMIA RESEARCH

Thermoradiotherapy with curative intent - breast, head and neck and prostate tumors.

Hyperthermia as a Cancer Therapy.

Survival benefit of hyperthermia in a prospective randomized trial of brachytherapy boost and hyperthermia for glioblastroma multiforme.

Comparison of radiotherapy alone with radiotherapy plus hyperthermia in locally advanced pelvic tumors: a prospective, randomized, multicenter trial.

Interstitial microwave thermal therapy for prostate cancer: method of treatment and results of  phase I/II trial.

Radiotherapy and hyperthermia in the treatment of patients with locally advanced prostate cancer: preliminary results.

Interstitial hyperthermia in conjunction with external beam radiotherapy and temporary interstitial implant in the treatment of adenocarcinoma of the prostate (ACP).

Regional Hyperthermia in conjunction with definitive radiotherapy against recurrent or locally advanced prostate cancer.

Efficacy of irradiation and external hyperthermia in locally advanced, hormone-refractory or radiation recurrent prostate cancer: a preliminary report.

Outpatient interstitial thermoradiotherapy.

Hyperthermia in oncology.

Hyperthermia as an adjuvant therapy of recurrent or metastatic malignant melanoma. A multicentre randomized trial by the European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology.

Report of long term follow up in a randomized trial comparing radiation therapy and radiation therapy plus hyperthermia to metastatic lymph nodes in stage IV head and neck patients.

Thermoradiotherapy for locally recurrent breast cancer with skin involvement.

Recurrent breast cancer results of superficial hyperthermia and re-irradiation.

Radiotherapy with or without hyperthermia in the treatment of superficial localized breast cancer: results from five randomized controlled trials.

Hyperthermia in combined treatment of cancer.

Heating the patient a promising approach?