1988 Volume 4 Issue 2 Pages 79-98
Now hyperthermia is widely used to treat clinical malignancies. In this articles, the history, the principle, the techniques and the clinical results of hyperthermia treatment were reviewed, and prospects of it were also mentioned. At present, methods of deep heating have to be improved, the possibility of non-invasive thermometry has to be considered, heat sensitivity needs to be defined and a practical concept of thermal dose has to be worked out. The recent wide clinical use of hyperthermia will no doubt lead to well-defined clinical trials which will bring with them important biological answers to hyperthermia-related problems. The design of large multicenter randomised clinical trial is therefore encouraged in order to evaluate the effects of hyperthermia for primary treatment of a malignancy as well as supplementary studies on metastatic and/or recurrent malignancy. The clinical results of combination of hyperthermia and irradiation for the patients with carcinoma of the esophagus are also presented herein.
