Combination Therapy of Radiation and Hyperthermia, Focusing on the Synergistic Anti-Cancer Effects and Research Trends

Abstract

Despite significant therapeutic advances, the toxicity of conventional therapies remains a major obstacle to their application. Radiation therapy (RT) is an important component of cancer treatment. Therapeutic hyperthermia (HT) can be defined as the local heating of a tumor to 40–44 °C. Both RT and HT have the advantage of being able to induce and regulate oxidative stress. Here, we discuss the effects and mechanisms of RT and HT based on experimental research investigations and summarize the results by separating them into three phases. Phase (1): RT + HT is effective and does not provide clear mechanisms; phase (2): RT + HT induces apoptosis via oxygenation, DNA damage, and cell cycle arrest; phase (3): RT + HT improves immunological responses and activates immune cells. Overall, RT + HT is an effective cancer modality complementary to conventional therapy and stimulates the immune response, which has the potential to improve cancer treatments, including immunotherapy, in the future.

Magnetite nanoparticles: an emerging adjunctive tool for the improvement of cancer immunotherapy

“…Hyperthermia therapy or thermal therapy is a technique that increases the temperature at the tumor site for the objective of tumor ablation [ 76 , 77 ]. However, hyperthermia alone provides limited efficacy for cancer treatment, so it is usually used to prime the treatment by other modalities, such as radiotherapy [ 78 ] or chemotherapy [ 79 , 80 ], for synergistic effects. Hyperthermia therapy is relatively less invasive, has less mutagenic potential, fewer side effects, and increases tumor specificity [ 51 ].…”

Advances in screening hyperthermic nanomedicines in 3D tumor models

“…Consequently, hyperthermia can improve tumor response, overcome radioresistance, and potentially reduce the side effectsassociated with high radiation doses. 293 In an elegant approach, copper sulphide NPs (CuS NPs) were associated at the surface of upconversion NPs (UCNPs) due to manganese dioxide (MnO 2 ) coating, forming multifunctional nanoplatforms (UCCM). 294 Formulated UCCMs were internalized in mouse colon (CT26) spheroids to evaluate internalization in a solid tumor model.…”

Enhancement of skin tumor laser hyperthermia with Ytterbium nanoparticles: numerical simulation

“…Furthermore, HT therapy does not increase the expression of the apoptosissignaling protein p53 in normal tissue. HT increases the generation of reactive oxygen species, leading to cellular damage and death in cancer cells [4][5][6]. Exposing tumors to HT causes a certain kind of cellular protein to change its structure, leading to its aggregation with other proteins that are susceptible to aggregation [7].…”