Role of hyperthermia in medical oncology.

The hallmarks of hyperthermia and its pleotropic effects are in favour of its combined use with chemotherapy. Preclinical research reveals that for heat killing and synergistic effects the thermal dose is most critical. Thermal enhancement of drug cytotoxicity is accompanied by cellular death and necrosis. Hereby, temperature application rate as well as sequence and time interval are important for both in vitro and in vivo thermal sensitizations of tumour cells. The positive results of phase II/III trials have definitely established hyperthermia in combination with chemotherapy as a novel clinical modality for the treatment of cancer. Hyperthermia targets the action of chemotherapy within the heated tumour. In specific clinical settings hyperthermia has proven its value and deserves a greater focus and investigation in other malignancies. To further define the role of hyperthermia in multimodal treatment, tumour patients should be included into randomized trials