1. What is tumor hyperthermia?

The principle of hyperthermia is to heat the tissue to the temperature that can kill tumor cells (42.5℃-43.5℃) by physical method for 60 ~ 120 minutes, and destroy tumor cells without damaging normal tissue (the temperature safety limit of normal tissue cells is 45℃1℃). Hyperthermia not only has direct cytotoxic effect on tumor cells, but also can enhance the curative effect of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, improve the immunity of the body and inhibit tumor metastasis.

Second, what are the types of hyperthermia?

At present, hyperthermia can be divided into whole body hyperthermia and local hyperthermia. Whole-body hyperthermia is rarely used because of its complicated operation, great systemic reaction of patients and certain danger. At present, local hyperthermia is mainly used in clinical tumor hyperthermia, and the heat sources used are: infrared ray, hot water bath, hot water bath, ultrasonic wave, radio frequency, microwave and so on.

Third, how to apply hyperthermia?

1. For patients with advanced tumor recurrence after radiotherapy, chemotherapy or surgery, hyperthermia alone can be used for palliative treatment, and it is not appropriate to continue the above treatment; It can also relieve the intractable pain of advanced tumors and improve the quality of life of patients. In addition, some superficial tumors such as breast cancer and skin cancer can also be directly treated with hyperthermia.

2. The combination of hyperthermia and chemotherapy, that is, thermochemotherapy, can increase the drug concentration in the tumor and enhance the anti-tumor effect; At the same time, it can reduce the toxic effect of chemotherapy drugs on unheated normal tissues; The combination of the two drugs is also helpful to prevent and delay the emergence of drug resistance. In addition, the tumor cells located in the center of the tumor are in a state of hypoxia, insensitive to radiation, and can not be completely killed after radiotherapy, which often becomes the source of tumor recurrence, and hyperthermia has a particularly strong effect on such tumor cells; In particular, S-phase cells resistant to radiotherapy are particularly sensitive to high temperature. Therefore, hyperthermia can make up for the deficiency of radiotherapy, and combined therapy can improve the curative effect.