Raising Body Temperature to Help Cancer Treatment?

An alarming study making its way across the news wires has reported on claims by Russian researchers that raising a cancer patient's body temperature can possibly make their treatment more effective.

The extremely controversial-and potentially dangerous-new technique, developed by Dr. Oleg Subbotin and colleagues at the Novosibirsk International Health Centre in Siberia, asserts that heating the body to 43.5° Celsius (110.3° Fahrenheit) for up to 40 minutes, can enhance the effectiveness of certain cancer treatments.

The technique, called general managed hyperthermy, is based on the theory that cancer cells begin to die around 42.5° C (108.5° F), while healthy cells continue to function normally at that temperature.

The Russian physicians place cancer patients in a bath heated to 46° C (114.8° F). As part of the procedure, patients are given a general anesthetic, administered drugs to increase the tolerance of their tissues and organs to the extreme heat, and put on a modified lung ventilator to facilitate breathing.

Subbotin claims that the technique has been successful for as many as 180 cancer patients (out of 500 treated), making their chemotherapy more effective and even minimizing their side effects. However, he acknowledges that their findings have not been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal or been verified by independent researchers.

Interestingly enough, another study published in the European Journal of Cancer concluded that regional hyperthermia (RHT) combined with chemotherapy appears to improve the survival outcomes of patients with high-risk, soft-tissue sarcomas.

Dr. R.D. Issels of the Klinikum Grosshadern Medical Center in Munich and colleagues conducted two phase II studies involving 120 patients. They found that RHT resulted in better local tumor control, but had no influence on distant metastasis-free survival or overall survival.

Issels acknowledged that much larger phase III studies were needed before any definitive conclusions about RHT could be drawn. Furthermore, in an accompanying editorial, Dr. O.S. Nielsen and colleagues from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark warned that any role hyperthermia might ultimately play in cancer treatment is extremely speculative at this time. Even in a best-case scenario, they said, its use would almost certainly be limited to very specific patient circumstances.

SOURCES:
Various news wires on or around November 7, 2001
European Journal of Cancer, September 2001; 27:1587-1616

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