An implant heating system using a ferromagnetic implant with low Curie temperature has been developed for treating human brain tumors. Safe and repeated hyperthermia was possible over periods averaging ten weeks in 23 out of 25 patients with malignant brain tumors without development of major side effects. Evaluation of the effects of this new treatment is still preliminary. Overall response rate was 34.8%. However, five of thirteen cases of malignant glioma and two of five cases of brain metastasis were responded well to interstitial hyperthermia given with or without irradiation. Pathological findings common to the treated tumors were circumscribed, ellipsoid shape of coagulation necrosis around the implant. Degeneration of tumor cells, hemorrhage, vascular stasis and thrombosis were found adjacent to the necrosis. In the future, a combination of interstitial hyperthermia with brachytherapy and chemotherapy may offer improved local control of brain tumor.

Eight patients with primary cancer of the oral cavity were preoperatively treated by combined treatment with hyperthermia and chemotherapy. They received two courses of chemotherapy, which included intra-arterial infusion of 100 mg of cisplatin (CDDP) and 25 mg of peplomycin (PEP) via the superficial temporal artery. The patients also received interstitial hyperthermia for 45 min once a week using the Implant Heating System (IHS) with chemotherapy. IHS consists of ferromagnetic implant, induction coil and generator to produce high frequency magnetic field. The ferromagnetic implant is made of Fe-Pt alloy (Fe: 73%, Pt: 27%), and has a Curie temperature of 68 degrees C. As a result, clinical complete response (CR) was observed in seven patients and partial response (PR) in one, and postoperative pathological examination showed no residual tumour cells in any specimen. Combined interstitial hyperthermia by IHS and chemotherapy is thus found to be an effective therapeutic method for treating oral cancers.

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Background: We evaluated whether the serum hormone levels are useful in the differential diagnosis of granulosa cell tumors (GCTs), regardless of menopausal status. Methods: Serum levels of luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone were measured preoperatively in all patients (n = 471) who underwent surgery for ovarian tumors at Chiba University Hospital between 2009 and 2021. These were compared in two groups, a GCT group (n = 13) and a group with other histological types (non-GCT) (n = 458). Results: The GCT group had significantly lower serum LH and FSH (p = 0.03 and p < 0.001, respectively) and significantly higher testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone (p < 0.001, p < 0.001, and p = 0.045, respectively) than the non-GCT group. Multivariate analysis revealed that serum FSH and estradiol were significantly associated with GCT (FSH, odds ratio (OR) = 0.0046, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.0026–0.22, p = 0.004; estradiol, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.96–0.998, p = 0.046). Receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis for GCTs showed that the area under the curve of serum FSH was 0.99, with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 98%, when the cutoff level was set at 2.0 IU/L. Conclusions: Preoperative serum FSH level is an extremely useful marker for differentiating GCTs from all ovarian tumors.