Esophageal Cancer[span class="rt-title-tag"]Hyperthermia Saves Lives[/span]

Improve Esophageal Cancer Treatment Results with Hyperthermia

Esophageal (Oesophageal) cancer is the eighth most common cancer worldwide according to the World Cancer Research Fund International. With nearly 456,000 new cases diagnosed in 2012. About 75% of those cases are diagnosed in Asia.

Level 1 Clinical results like the one below reveal that both Chemotherapy and Radiation treatment are more effective when combined with Hyperthermia. Hyperthermia warms the tumor to temperatures in the "fever range" which makes the cancer cells more sensitive to treatment. Normal healthy cells recover while cancer cells die.

Clinical Evidence

Tumor Entity:

Primary thoracic esophageal cancer stage III and IV

Treatment Modality:

Three randomized studies were performed in esophageal cancer, comparing radio and/or chemotherapy with or without intraluminal hyperthermia. Kitamura et al. compared preoperative radiochemotherapy with or without hyperthermia. Wang et al. compared 60 Gy alone to 40 Gy plus hyperthermia. Sugimachi et al. compared preoperative chemotherapy with or without hyperthermia. Third party hyperthermia devices used.

esophagus ht table

Clinical Results:

  • Kitamura et al. found a significantly higher pCR in the plus hyperthermia treatment arm: 25% vs 6%.
  • Wang et al. found a significantly better 3-y overall survival with hyperthermia: 42 vs 24%.
  • Sugimachi et al. found that the local effects tended to be better in the plus hyperthermia group: improvement of dysphagia 70% vs 40%; radiographic improvement 50% vs 25%, and histopathological evidence of treatment effect 41% vs 19%.

Duration of hyperthermia treatment

Intraluminal hyperthermia total 30 minutes

References:

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