Multi-institutional clinical studies on hyperthermia combined with radiotherapy or chemotherapy in advanced cancer of deep-seated organs

Abstract

Multi-institutional studies on clinical hyperthermia of deep-seated tumours were undertaken using 8 MHz radiofrequency capacitive heating devices (Thermotron RF-8) at seven institutions. Each institute was designated to treat specific organs. This paper contains the accumulations of the results obtained at different institutions charged for different tumours. Deep-seated tumours in the lung, stomach, pancreas, liver, urinary bladder and rectum were treated. A total of 177 cases examined from January 1985 to December 1988 included 96 cases (54%) treated with radiotherapy plus hyperthermia, among which 14 cases were pre-operative. Of 177 cases, 81 (46%) were treated with chemotherapy plus hyperthermia. Complete response (CR) and partial response (PR) were obtained in 80% of the cases with lung cancer, 39% with stomach cancer, 56% with liver cancer, 35% with pancreas cancer, 71% with urinary bladder cancer, 100% with primary rectal cancer, and 47% with recurrent rectal cancer. Thermometry was performed using two techniques; one is direct measurement of intratumour temperature in lung and liver cancers, the other is indirect measurement of intracavitary temperature for stomach, pancreas, urinary bladder and rectal cancers. Intratumour temperatures were measured in 30 of the 43 tumours of the lung and liver. The maximum tumour temperature was greater than 42 degrees C in 23 (77%) of the 30 tumours. Intracavitary temperatures were measured in 133 (99%) of the 134 tumours of stomach, pancreas, urinary bladder and rectum. An intracavitary temperature greater than 42 degrees C was obtained in 98 (73.7%) of the 133 tumours. The contribution of hyperthermia in improving the quality of life of patients under terminal care was also investigated. It was indicated that hyperthermia was one of the most effective treatment techniques for advanced or inoperable cases. In this study local control rate (LCR) was mainly discussed because the period of follow-up was only 3 years. Side-effects were observed in 37 cases (21%); main side-effects were fatty induration, pain during treatment and burn. However, no side-effects were severe enough to interrupt therapy.

The clinical benefit of hyperthermia in pancreatic cancer: a systematic review

“…Six out of 14 studies used a control population that enabled a comparison between treatments with and without hyperthermia [54,55,57,60,62,66]. In two studies, patients with a variety of carcinomas were included, but data were reported for the pancreatic patients separately [53,59].…”

“…For the patients who received HT within the studies, this HT was in combination with radiotherapy for 17 patients (7%, two studies) [53,55], with chemoradiotherapy for 82 patients (33%, four studies) [54,60,62,66], and with chemotherapy for 149 patients (60%) in the remaining eight studies. Three types of hyperthermia treatment were applied: locoregional, whole-body and intraoperative hyperthermia.…”

“…After the first and second selection (Figure 1), 14 studies were included [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66]. Two patient cohorts were each described in two articles; for these we excluded the oldest [67,68] and included the latest [54,57].…”

Microwave Cavity with Controllable Temperature for In Vitro Hyperthermia Investigations

“…A key challenge prior to employing hyperthermia is to carry out in vitro assessment of the procedure's efficacy [4][5][6][7]. For our case, the goal is to assess fullerene agents to reduce heating time and improve hyperthermia efficacy.…”

Chemohyperthermia in non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer: An overview of the literature and recommendations

“…The HY-deep 600WM V R (Verde Andromedic, Italy), Celsius TCS V R (Celsius 42þ, Cologne, Germany), Synchrotherm RF 1200 V R (Sychrotherm, Vigevano, Italy), and Thermotron RF-8 V R (Thermotron, MPR and Yamato, Japan) are capacitive hyperthermia systems which use electrodes to excite hyperthermia. In the past, the Thermotron RF-8 V R device has been used for treatment of invasive bladder carcinoma [19,20]. We do not discuss these systems further in this paper, since no recent clinical trials have been published regarding these hyperthermia systems in the treatment of bladder cancer.…”