ROLE OF HYPERTHERMIA, IN COMBINED TREATMENT OF CANCER
Rahul Gurjar, Rajababu Sahu, Ramgopal Yadav, Ramkumar Ahirwar and Pushpendra K. Khangar*
ABSTRACT
Hyperthermia, the procedure of raising the temperature of tumour-loaded tissue to 40–43°C, is applied as an
adjunctive therapy with various established cancer treatments such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The
potential to control power distributions in vivo has been significantly improved lately by the development of
planning systems and other modelling tools. This increased understanding has led to the design of multiantenna
applicators (including their transforming networks) and implementation of systems for monitoring of E-fields (eg,
electro-optical sensors) and temperature (particularly, online magnetic resonance tomography). Hyperthermia
(HT) is one of the hot topics that have been discussed over decades. However, it never made its way into
primetime. The basic biological rationale of heat to enhance the effect of radiation, chemotherapeutic agents, and
immunotherapy is evident. Preclinical work has confirmed this effect. HT may trigger changes in perfusion and
oxygenation as well as inhibition of DNA repair mechanisms. Moreover, there is evidence for immune stimulation
and the induction of systemic immune responses. Despite the increasing number of solid clinical studies, only few
centers have included this adjuvant treatment into their repertoire. However, for every particular temperaturedependent
interaction exploited for clinical purposes, sophisticated control of temperature, spatially as well as
temporally, in deep body regions will further improve the potential.
Keywords: Hyperthermia, Mechanism, Radiotherapy, Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy.
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