Hyperthermia Therapy - Types

Types

• Local hyperthermia heats a very small area, usually the tumor itself. In some instances, the goal is to kill the tumor by heating it, without damaging anything else. The heat may be created with microwave, radiofrequency, ultrasound energy or using magnetic hyperthermia. Depending on the location of the tumor, the heat may be applied to the surface of the body, inside normal body cavities, or deep in tissue through the use of needles or probes. One relatively common type is radiofrequency ablation of small tumors. This is easiest to achieve when the tumor is on a superficial part of the body, which is called superficial hyperthermia, or when needles or probes are inserted directly into the tumor, which is called interstitial hyperthermia.
• Regional hyperthermia heats a larger part of the body, such as an entire organ or limb. Usually, the goal is to weaken cancer cells so that they are more likely to be killed by radiation and chemotherapeutic medications. This may use the same techniques as local hyperthermia treatment, or it may rely on blood perfusion. In blood perfusion, the patient's blood is removed from the body, heated up, and returned to blood vessels that lead directly through the desired body part. Normally, chemotherapy drugs are infused at the same time. One specialized type of this approach is continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion (CHPP), which is used to treat difficult cancers within the peritoneal cavity (the abdomen), including primary peritoneal mesothelioma and stomach cancer. Hot chemotherapy drugs are pumped directly into the peritoneal cavity to kill the cancer cells.
• Whole-body hyperthermia heats the entire body to temperatures of about 39 to 41 °C. It is typically used to treat metastatic cancer (cancer that spread to many parts of the body). Techniques include infrared hyperthermia domes which include the whole body apart from the head, putting the patient in a very hot room, or wrapping the patient in hot, wet blankets.