Hyperthermia, a modality in the wings.

Hyperthermia is a heat-treatment. It is widely used in various medical fields and has a well-recognized effect in oncology. Its effect is achieved by overheating of the targeted tissues. It is an ancient treatment and a promising physical approach with lack of acceptance by the serious medical use. To accept the method we need strong proofs and stable, reproducible treatment quality, but we are limited by biological, physical/technical and physiological problems. However, the main point--I believe--is the incorrect characterization and unrealistic expectations from this capable method. The temperature concept of the quality assurance guidelines has to be replaced by the heat-dose sensitive characterization, pointing the essence of the hyperthermia method.

Dose concept of oncological hyperthermia: heat-equation considering the cell destruction.

We shall assume, of course, that the objective of hyperthermia is to destroy the malignant cells. Destruction definitely needs energy. Description and quality assurance of hyperthermia use the Pennes heat equation to describe the processes. However the energy balance of the Pennes-equation does not contain the hyperthermic cell-destruction energy, which is a mandatory factor of the process. We propose a generalization of the Pennes-equation, inducing the entire energy balance. The new paradigm could be a theoretical basis of the till now empirical dose-construction for oncological hyperthermia. The cell destruction is a non-equilibrium thermodynamical process, described by the equations of chemical reactions. The dynamic behavior (time dependence) has to be considered in this approach. We are going to define also a dose concept that can be objectively compared with other oncological methods. We show how such empirical dose as CEM43oC could be based theoretically as well.