Hyperthermia is an adjuvant local anti-cancer treatment using temperatures exceeding the physiologically optimal level, typically 40-43 °C for approximately one hour ....
The currently available arsenal of anticancer modalities includes many DNA damaging agents that can kill malignant cells. However, efficient DNA repair mechanisms protect both healthy and cancer ...cells against the effects of treatment and contribute to the development of drug resistance. Therefore, anti-cancer treatments based on inflicting DNA damage can benefit from inhibition of DNA repair. Hyperthermia - treatment at elevated temperature - considerably affects DNA repair, among other cellular processes, and can thus sensitize (cancer) cells to DNA damaging agents. This effect has been known and clinically applied for many decades, but how heat inhibits DNA repair and which pathways are targeted has not been fully elucidated. In this review we attempt to summarize the known effects of hyperthermia on DNA repair pathways relevant in clinical treatment of cancer. Furthermore, we outline the relationships between the effects of heat on DNA repair and sensitization of cells to various DNA damaging agents.
Regions of low oxygenation (hypoxia) are a characteristic feature of solid tumors, and cells existing in these regions are a major factor influencing radiation resistance as well as playing a ...significant role in malignant progression. Consequently, numerous pre-clinical and clinical attempts have been made to try and overcome this hypoxia. These approaches involve improving oxygen availability, radio-sensitizing or killing the hypoxic cells, or utilizing high LET (linear energy transfer) radiation leading to a lower OER (oxygen enhancement ratio). Interestingly, hyperthermia (heat treatments of 39⁻45 °C) induces many of these effects. Specifically, it increases blood flow thereby improving tissue oxygenation, radio-sensitizes via DNA repair inhibition, and can kill cells either directly or indirectly by causing vascular damage. Combining hyperthermia with low LET radiation can even result in anti-tumor effects equivalent to those seen with high LET. The various mechanisms depend on the time and sequence between radiation and hyperthermia, the heating temperature, and the time of heating. We will discuss the role these factors play in influencing the interaction between hyperthermia and radiation, and summarize the randomized clinical trials showing a benefit of such a combination as well as suggest the potential future clinical application of this combination.
Peritoneal metastasis (PM) originating from gastrointestinal and gynecological malignancies are associated with a poor prognosis and rapid disease progression. Cytoreductive surgery (CRS) with ...hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) is an effective treatment option with curative intent. Hyperthermia enhances the cytotoxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs, thereby killing microscopic tumors and reducing the risk of tumor recurrence. Eight parameters potentially have an impact on the efficacy of HIPEC: the type of drug, drug concentrations, carrier solution, volume of the perfusate, temperature of the perfusate, duration of the treatment, the technique of delivery, and patient selection. In this review, a literature search was performed on PubMed, and a total of 564 articles were screened of which 168 articles were included. Although HIPEC is a successful treatment, there is no standardized method for delivering HIPEC: the choice of parameters is presently largely determined by institutional preferences. We discuss the current choice of the parameters and hypothesize about improvements toward uniform standardization. Quantifying the effect of each parameter separately is necessary to determine the optimal way to perform HIPEC procedures. In vivo, in vitro, in silico, and other experimental studies should shed light on the role of each of the eight parameters.
Radiotherapy with cisplatin (chemoradiation) is the standard treatment for women with locally advanced cervical cancer. Radiotherapy with deep hyperthermia (thermoradiation) is a well established ...alternative, but is rarely offered as an alternative to chemoradiation, particularly for patients in whom cisplatin is contraindicated. The scope of this review is to provide an overview of the biological rationale of hyperthermia treatment delivery, including patient workflow, and the clinical effectiveness of hyperthermia as a radiosensitizer in the treatment of cervical cancer. Hyperthermia is especially effective in hypoxic and nutrient deprived areas of the tumor where radiotherapy is less effective. Its radiosensitizing effectiveness depends on the temperature level, duration of treatment, and the time interval between radiotherapy and hyperthermia. High quality hyperthermia treatment requires an experienced team, adequate online adaptive treatment planning, and is preferably performed using a phased array radiative locoregional hyperthermia device to achieve the optimal thermal dose effect. Hyperthermia is well tolerated and generally leads to only mild toxicity, such as patient discomfort. Patients in whom cisplatin is contraindicated should therefore be referred to a hyperthermia center for thermoradiation.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is associated with cervical cancer, the third most common cancer in women. The high-risk HPV types 16 and 18 are found in over 70% of cervical cancers and produce the ...oncoprotein, early protein 6 (E6), which binds to p53 and mediates its ubiquitination and degradation. Targeting E6 has been shown to be a promising treatment option to eliminate HPV-positive tumor cells. In addition, combined hyperthermia with radiation is a very effective treatment strategy for cervical cancer. In this study, we examined the effect of hyperthermia on HPV-positive cells using cervical cancer cell lines infected with HPV 16 and 18, in vivo tumor models, and ex vivo-treated patient biopsies. Strikingly, we demonstrate that a clinically relevant hyperthermia temperature of 42 °C for 1 hour resulted in E6 degradation, thereby preventing the formation of the E6-p53 complex and enabling p53-dependent apoptosis and G2-phase arrest. Moreover, hyperthermia combined with p53 depletion restored both the cell-cycle distribution and apoptosis to control levels. Collectively, our findings provide new insights into the treatment of HPV-positive cervical cancer and suggest that hyperthermia therapy could improve patient outcomes.
Hyperthermic IntraPEritoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) aims to treat microscopic disease left after CytoReductive Surgery (CRS). Thermal enhancement depends on the temperatures achieved. Since the ...location of microscopic disease is unknown, a homogeneous treatment is required to completely eradicate the disease while limiting side effects. To ensure homogeneous delivery, treatment planning software has been developed. This study compares simulation results with clinical data and evaluates the impact of nine treatment strategies on thermal and drug distributions.
For comparison with clinical data, three treatment strategies were simulated with different flow rates (1600-1800mL/min) and inflow temperatures (41.6-43.6 °C). Six additional treatment strategies were simulated, varying the number of inflow catheters, flow direction, and using step-up and step-down heating strategies. Thermal homogeneity and the risk of thermal injury were evaluated.
Simulated temperature distributions, core body temperatures, and systemic chemotherapeutic concentrations compared well with literature values. Treatment strategy was found to have a strong influence on the distributions. Additional inflow catheters could improve thermal distributions, provided flow rates are kept sufficiently high (>500 mL/min) for each catheter. High flow rates (1800 mL/min) combined with high inflow temperatures (43.6 °C) could lead to thermal damage, with
values of up to 27 min. Step-up and step-down heating strategies allow for high temperatures with reduced risk of thermal damage.
The planning software provides valuable insight into the effects of different treatment strategies on peritoneal distributions. These strategies are designed to provide homogeneous treatment delivery while limiting thermal injury to normal tissue, thereby optimizing the effectiveness of HIPEC.
The linear-quadratic model (LQ model) provides a biologically plausible and experimentally established method to quantitatively describe the dose-response to irradiation in terms of clonogenic ...survival. In the basic LQ formula, the clonogenic surviving fraction Sd/S₀ following a radiation dose d (Gy) is described by an inverse exponential approximation: Sd/S₀ = e-(αd+βd²), wherein α and β are experimentally derived parameters for the linear and quadratic terms, respectively. Radiation is often combined with other agents to achieve radiosensitisation. In this study, we reviewed radiation enhancement ratios of hyperthermia (HT), halogenated pyrimidines (HPs), various cytostatic drugs and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase‑1 (PARP1) inhibitors expressed in the parameters α and β derived from cell survival curves of various mammalian cell cultures. A significant change in the α/β ratio is of direct clinical interest for the selection of optimal fractionation schedules in radiation oncology, influencing the dose per fraction, dose fractionation and dose rate in combined treatments. The α/β ratio may increase by a mutually independent increase of α or decrease of β. The results demonstrated that the different agents increased the values of both α and β. However, depending on culture conditions, both parameters can also be separately influenced. Moreover, it appeared that radiosensitisation was more effective in radioresistant cell lines than in radiosensitive cell lines. Furthermore, radiosensitisation is also dependent on the cell cycle stage, such as the plateau or exponentially growing phase, as well as on post-treatment plating conditions. The LQ model provides a useful tool in the quantification of the effects of radiosensitising agents. These insights will help optimize fractionation schedules in multimodality treatments.
Combined radiotherapy and hyperthermia is a well-established alternative to chemoradiotherapy for advanced stage cervical cancer patients with a contraindication for chemotherapy. Pre-clinical ...evidence suggests that the radiosensitizing effect of hyperthermia decreases substantially for time intervals between radiotherapy and hyperthermia as short as 1-2 h, but clinical evidence is limited. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the time interval between external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and same-day hyperthermia on in-field recurrence rate, overall survival and late toxicity in women with advanced stage cervical cancer.
Patients with advanced stage cervical cancer who underwent a full-course of curative daily EBRT and (4-5) weekly hyperthermia sessions between 1999 and 2014 were included for retrospective analysis. The mean time interval between EBRT fractions and same-day hyperthermia was calculated for each patient; the median thereof was used to divide the cohort in a 'short' and 'long' time-interval group. Kaplan-Meier analysis and stepwise Cox regression were used to compare the in-field recurrence and overall survival. Finally, high-grade (≥3) late toxicity was compared across time-interval groups. DNA repair suppression is an important hyperthermia mechanism, DNA damage repair kinetics were therefore studied in patient biopsies to support clinical findings.
Included were 58 patients. The 3-year in field recurrence rate was 18% and 53% in the short (≤79.2 min) and long (>79.2 min) time-interval group, respectively (p = 0.021); the 5-year overall survival was 52% and 17% respectively (p = 0.015). Differences between time-interval groups remained significant for both in-field recurrence (HR = 7.7, p = 0.007) and overall survival (HR = 2.3, p = 0.012) in multivariable Cox regression. No difference in toxicity was observed (p = 1.00), with only 6 and 5 events in the short and long group, respectively. The majority of DNA damage was repaired within 2 h, potentially explaining a reduced effectiveness of hyperthermia for long time intervals.
A short time interval between EBRT and hyperthermia is associated with a lower risk of in-field recurrence and a better overall survival. There was no evidence for difference in late toxicity.
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