A number of centers across the country report encouraging results from the use of hyperthermia in conjunction with radiation therapy to manage various types of cancer.
Some of the studies reported are still animal studies or phase I or phase II trials and the patient numbers are relatively modest. But radiation oncologists are buoyed by what they see as consistency in the findings.
Though several reports presented recently at the meeting of the American Society of Therapeutic Radiologists in Miami Beach cautioned that there is much to learn about the effects of heat on body systems and about the delivery and measurement of heat intensity in tumor tissue, they also emphasized that precise, localized heating combined with radiotherapy can dramatically increase the control of tumor recurrence not only in superficial sites but in some deep-seated ones as well.
One such report, by Michael R. Manning, MD, assistant professor of radiology
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