Hyperthermia

[Seadee]

Has anyone heard of any success with the use of hyperthermia for treating cancer patients? I believe they have clinics in Germany.

[LB]

We asked our oncologist about this only a few weeks ago. He said it has been around as a concept for a long time, but to date no peer reviewed clinical studies have been done to prove it works. A worry beacuse most things that work have the clinicians rushing to prove the effectiveness and get the treatment to patients. He also said that there were considerable risks involved - not sure if that was for all cancers or just to my husband with pancreas cancer. The risk is related to the need to heat the entire body to high temperatures and the consequences in doing this to very sick people. Hope this helps. He wasn't very encouraging to us, but we suspected it would be widely used by now if it was truly effective.

[#3]

Hi All, This post has been removed as it breaches the Terms and Conditions of use for the website. Felix Cancer Connections Coordinator

[Sailor]

Hi There Raising the temperature of either part or the whole of the body to fight cancer has been around for a long time and various attempts have been made from time to time to use it. Techniques have included some weird and wonderful ways to raise body temperature, as well as using radiofrequency and ultra sound to deliver energy to selected parts of the body to raise the temperature and kill off cells. You don't need to raise temperatures a lot to kill cells, which is why the body has very effective temperature regulating mechanisms. Problem number one from history is that results were never consistent. Problem number two is that it would be difficult to do a randomised controlled trial, particularly as the side effects of raising whole body temperature are well known and pretty awful. I think most of the medical profession would caution attempts at self treatment in this area. Cheers Sailor An incorrectly identified mark is a hazard, not an aid, to navigation. Alton B. Moody

[Seadee]

Hi and thanks for your replies.I did email a clinic in Germany to ask about this for my type of cancer.They were keen to tell me that they had treated over 20 000 patients but would not reply when asked about evidence based success. I tend to agree that it would be widely used by now if proven effective.