Radiotherapy in conjunction with superficial and intracavitary hyperthermia for the treatment of solid tumors: survival and thermal parameters

Hyperthermia is an effective modality for the treatment of cancer, which is mainly used in conjunction with radiotherapy as this combined treatment offers a better clinical outcome. There are many ways that hyperthermia can be applied and depends on the kind of tumor of the patients. The great advantage of this method is that it is tolerable for the majority of patients without severe toxicity. Many clinical trials have been realized in order to prove that hyperthermia in addition to radiotherapy offers an advantage in the survival and local control of patients in comparison to radiotherapy alone. Many studies have also investigated if exists any correlation between the thermal parameters of hyperthermia and the clinical outcome. This is a review of these studies and it concerns superficial hyperthermia for superficial tumors-melanoma, head and neck, breast cancer-and intracavitary hyperthermia for rectal cancer, esophageal cancer and prostate carcinoma.