Hyperthermie en effect naast bestraling: Combinatiebehandeling van bestraling en hyperthermie geeft significant betere resultaten bij behandeling van recidief tumoren bij o.a. melanomen, borstkanker en hersentumoren.

30 maart 2016: Onderstaand persbericht gaat om deze studie, zie ook gerelateerde artikelen:

algemeen-hyperthermie-als-aanvulling-op-bestraling-geeft-significant-betere-respons-bij-oppervlakkige-tumoren-aldus-gerandomiseerde-studie

29 april 2005: Bron: DOW

Deze studie toont aan dat hyperthermie naast bestraling bij o.a. recidief van melanomen, borstkanker en hersentumoren een significant beter resultaat geeft op uiteindelijke resultaat dan na alleen bestraling. Zie in linkerkolom meer over o.a. hyperthermie bij verschillende vormen van kanker.

-- =WSJ: Heating Tumors Helps Treat Cancer, Study Says --

By Joseph Pereira
Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

BOSTON (Dow Jones)--Heating a tumor before treating it with radiation dramatically increased the odds of eradicating the tumor - particularly among patients with recurring cancers, according to a new study by a group of Duke University researchers. (This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal Web site, WSJ.com.)

In a study of 109 patients suffering from skin, breast and brain cancer, 66% of those who received combined heat and radiation therapy saw their tumors disappear compared with 42% in the radiation-only group. However, among those with recurring cancers, complete shrinkage occurred in 68% of patients receiving dual therapy, compared with 23% in their radiation-only cohorts. The study to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology backs up previous findings of a higher efficacy rate of heat and radiation combinations and is expected to boost the ranks of dual therapy advocates in the U.S., which has lagged behind Europe and Asia in adopting such a protocol. While effective in shrinking tumors, dual therapy did not extend the survival rate for patients in the study. The disease in patients with recurring cancers often spreads to other parts of the body, as well.

The patients were followed for about seven years from 1994 to 2001; many of them died during the course of the study. A majority of subjects were breast cancer patients with chest wall tumors. An estimated 215,000 women get breast cancer a year; about 10,000 of them suffer from a recurrence. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ellen Jones, a radiation oncologist at Duke and the study's principal investor, said, "The dual therapy offers the best potential for long-term cancer control in women whose cancers haven't yet metastasized."

Patients with recurring cancers can only receive reduced dose of radiation because a full dose is too toxic a second time. But hyperthermia increases the odds of complete shrinkage of the tumor even with reduced doses. The Duke study is also one of the first to provide a detailed guideline for doctors on how much heat to apply and for how long. The tumors of the heated patients were warmed to 43 degrees C -or 109 degrees F - for one to two hours per treatment. Treatments were delivered twice a week for a maximum of 10 sessions. For the most part, heat application has remained somewhat of a guessing game. But Duke researchers closely monitored the thermal readings of their patients, placing heat sensors both on the surface as well as within the tumor, explained Mark W. Dewhirst, a Duke professor of radiation oncology and the study's senior author.

The suggested range of applied heat thus far "has been all over the place," Dewhirst said. "It's not like radiation where you can calculate the exact amount of dose to be delivered," he said, "thermal energy gets a lot trickier." Doctors have long sensed the value of heat as a companion therapy. For centuries some cancer patients with high fevers have experienced complete remissions. More recently doctors have also used hot water applications to achieve better results with certain types of cervical cancers. Hyperthermia received a small setback in the late 1980s when two major studies, evaluating about 300 patients, reported no benefit over single therapy protocols.

But a number of studies published in the last decade have reestablished the benefit of using heat with both radiation as well as chemotherapy, Dewhirst said. Researchers say heat opens up the blood vessel walls allowing greater penetration of chemotherapy and radiation into the tumor. Heat also increases levels of oxygen which is needed for radiation and chemotherapy to take effect. -By Joseph Pereira, The Wall Street Journal; 617-654-6701

hersentumoren, melanomen, borstkanker, blaaskanker, hyperthermie, oppervlakkige tumoren