Exposure of hamster cells to 42.5 degrees C for long periods leads to the development of thermal tolerance; the slope of the survival curve become shallower after about 3.5 to 4 hours. If two 4-hour exposures at 42.5 degrees C are separated by various periods of time, thermal tolerance is eliminated by 20 hours. Prolonged exposure at 42.5 degrees C offers considerable protection from subsequent treatments to acute hyperthermia at 45 degrees C indicate or in conditioned medium or balanced salt solution failed to reveal any evidence of repair of potentially lethal damage.

Hyperthermia combined with 60Co gamma irradiation was studied using V79 hamster cells cultured in vitro. Modest hyperthermia (41 degrees C for 6 hrs.) enhanced the cell killing produced by acute exposure to radiation. The same treatment enhanced the effect of low dose-rate irradiation (200 rads/hr.) even more. The sequence in which modest hyperthermia was combined with low dose-rate irradiation was important. Maximal enhancement was observed when hyperthermia was followed by irradiations. The probable explanation is that, by damaging the repair system, prior heat renders the cells unable to repair sublethal damage during subsequent low dose-rate irradiation.