Evaluation of equipment for hyperthermic treatment of cancer

Abstract

Clinical hyperthermia has been practised at The University of Texas System Cancer Center for nearly a decade at the time of writing. In 1977 we began with the use of systemic hyperthermia affected by circulating hot water through blankets surrounding the patient (Barlogie et al. 1979). The following year we began the development of systems for inducing local and regional hyperthermia to attain higher intratumoural temperatures, achieve greater antitumour activity and yet circumvent the toxicities associated with systemic hyperthermia above 42 degrees Celsius. The systems described below were the result of this effort, and, at the time that this contract was awarded in 1981, an active program was underway using ultrasound and magnetic induction as the two principal methods for external non-invasive tumour temperature elevation. Needle implant techniques were also in use as invasive methods for direct ohmic heating of tumours by the conduction of electric currents between arrays of implanted stainless steel electrodes. These latter methods were, and are now, primarily used intraoperatively. Clinical hyperthermia has been practised at The University of Texas System Cancer Center for nearly a decade at the time of writing. In 1977 we began with the use of systemic hyperthermia affected by circulating hot water through blankets surrounding the patient (Barlogie et al. 1979). The following year we began the development of systems for inducing local and regional hyperthermia to attain higher intratumoural temperatures, achieve greater antitumour activity and yet circumvent the toxicities associated with systemic hyperthermia above 42 degrees Celsius. The systems described below were the result of this effort, and, at the time that this contract was awarded in 1981, an active program was underway using ultrasound and magnetic induction as the two principal methods for external non-invasive tumour temperature elevation. Needle implant techniques were also in use as invasive methods for direct ohmic heating of tumours by the conduction of electric currents between arrays of implanted stainless steel electrodes. These latter methods were, and are now, primarily used intraoperatively.