The Hyperthermia European Adjuvant Trial (HEAT) was a study that involved 117 patients with pancreatic cancer. It was an open-label, multicenter trial with two groups: a control group and an adjuvant therapy group. The control group received only gemcitabine, a standard chemotherapy drug, while the adjuvant therapy group received gemcitabine along with cisplatin and hyperthermia, using the BSD-2000 3D Deep Regional Hyperthermia System.
Although the disease-free survival was slightly better in the group receiving hyperthermia (12.7 months) compared to the control group (11.2 months), the 5-year overall survival was much better in the hyperthermia group (28.4%) compared to the control group (18.7%). This is a significant increase compared to the 5-year overall survival rate for PDAC of ~20%.
Note: In the middle of the study, the standard of care was changed from gemcitabine to folfirinox, which prevented the population of the study from reaching the original target.
The study, "Regional hyperthermia with cisplatin added to gemcitabine versus gemcitabine in patients with resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: The HEAT randomised clinical trial" by Dr. Rolf Issles et al, was published in the European Journal of Cancer. [Eur J Cancer. 2022;181:155-165. doi:10.1016/j.ejca.2022.12.