Hyperthermia for Esophageal Carcinoma (Hyperthermia for Cancer : Present Status in Various Clinical Fields)

Esophageal cancer has a dismal prognosis with an overall 5-year survival that does not exceed 20%.In an attempt to improve poor results, a number of therapeutic approaches have been tried. In this article we focused our attention on hyperthermia therapy for esophageal carcinoma. Then clinical trials using hyperthermia for esophageal carcinoma are reviewed in our own experince and literatures. Five patients with esophageal cancer were treated by radiation and hyperthermia in our university hospital. Hyperthermia was performed by an intracavitary microwave application. The overall response rate was 80%（4/5）. One untreated patient was treated with curative intent with combined radiotherapy and hyperthermia, and maintained local control until his death. One patient with recurrent disease also achieved local control for 38 months. Since we have no control group, we cannot precisely evaluate our results obtaiened with hyperthemia. There were few published reports treated with hyperthemia for esophageal carcinoma, however, most investigators performed hyperthermic treatments using a radiofrequency system with an endotract electrode. In some institutions hyperthermia was concurrently given in combination with radiation and chemotherapy as a preoperative modality for patients with carcinoma of the esophagus. Some authors reported not only a high overall response rate but also an increase in the survival rate. The ultimate benefits of such multidisciplinary therapies including hyperthemia for carcinoma of the esophagus must be evaluated the results of prospective randomized trials