The Japanese Society of Hypperthermia Oncology conducted a nation-wide survey of the present situation of local hyperthermia in Japan as of December 1992. We could receive responses to this survey from 119 institutions out of 156 institutions where hyperthermic equipment was installed.
We explain the result of survey concerning the following 7 items :
1) Hyperthermia in Japan : As of December 1991, the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan approved 10 models of hyperthermia equipment, and the number of installed equipment is 185. There are 47 units of microwave heating equipment, representing 25.4%. There are three kinds of RF capacitive heating equipment. They represent 61.6% of the total.
2) Theatment schedule : The time required for one session ranged from 40 to 60 minutes. The numbers of sessions per one course of treatment were 5, 6, or 10.
3) Heating techiques : Difficulties encountered in local hyperthermia was surveyed. In average, these items were mentioned in the decreasing order of difficulty as follows : (1) To obtain effective heating. (2) To alleviate pains experenced by patients. (3) To measure exact temperatures. (4), To have sufficient manpower.
4) Thermometry : In case of microwave heating and BSD-1000, temperatures were measured for 80% or more of total cases of both shallow-seated tumors and deep-seated tumors. On the contrary, in case of RF capacitive heating, temperatures were measured often for shallow-seated tumors. Temperature were not measured often for deep-seated tumors.
5) Hyperthermia treatment : Until December 1991, 8872 patients were treated at 104 institutions. 21 % of them are superficial tumors, 22.6 % of them are shallow-seated tumors, 56.2% of them are deep-seated tumors. On other hand, 12.5% of them are heated by microwave heating. 63.2% of them are heated by RF capacitive heating.
6) Hyperthermia treatment classification : We have analyzed the breakdown of combination therapy applied to 4916 cases treated for the recent 4 years. Hyperthermia alone represents 5.3%; thermoradiotherapy, 57.5%, thermochemotherapy, 22.6%; and thermochemoradiotherapy, 14.4%.
7) Indication of thermomadiotherapy and evaluation of thermochemotherapy : Thermoradiotherapy is most widely applied, and their indications have been clarified. Thermoradiotherapy is performed at the 70% of the total institutions surveyed, and the therapeutic efficacy is expected.
抄録全体を表示