Hyperthermia: A new cancer treatment modality

Purpose of this review paper is to provide an overview on the application of hyperthermia (HT) [the controlled increased of tumor temperature by 8-3°C] combined with conventional cancer treatment modalities. HT is applied with different methods e.g. superficial-HT, locoregional deep-HT, interstitial-HT, intracavity-HT, and whole body-HT. Studies show that addition of HT to radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or both, will result in better tumor response rate, local control, palliative effects and survival rate, without increasing toxicity, in different tumor sites such as breast cancer, melanoma, head and neck, cervix cancer and glioblastoma. In the recent years, due to the substantial technical improvements in achieving selected increase of temperatures in superficial and deep-seated tumors, thermometry, and treatment planning, HT is becoming more accepted clinically worldwide. HT, as an adjunctive cancer treatment modality, is certainly a promising approach, however, it is not well known yet.