Hyperthermia and CancerDialysis
Author: Sture Hobro
Hyperthermia is used for centuries as a remedy for a range of conditions. Today whole-body hyperthermia is recognized as an effective adjunct in the treatment of many cancers.
It may be possible to combine hashtagCancerDialysis with whole-body hyperthermia. When the blood is outside the body, it is possible to warm the returning blood and increase the body temperature of the patient to 39-40 °C.
The suggestion is to increase the temperature of the returning blood from the extracorporeal blood path to 43 degrees in the returning blood. Then, the patient’s body temperature will increase by around 2 degrees per hour.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells dislodged from the primary tumor into the bloodstream, travel within the bloodstream to distant organs, and CTCs are the cause to metastases. The relationship between the existence of CTCs and tumor prognosis has been demonstrated by many researchers. In surgery for malignancies, the surgical manipulation of tumors and tissues around the tumor may lead to the release of CTCs into the bloodstream. One idea could be to use CancerDialysis in close connection with surgery to eliminate CTC:s during or after surgery or to eliminate small newly established metastases.
The figure includes the dialysis system (1) to do the metabolic switch utilizing the dialyzer, where glucose and glutamine are reduced from the patient and ketones added. The blood warmer will heat the blood to a high temperature, and Circulating Tumor Cells are more sensitive to heat than blood cells and will die at those high temperatures. Furthermore, if temperature is increased in the patient with circulating CTC (4), tumors (5) in the patient may have an even higher increase when it is well known that tumors have an increased temperature around 2 °C compared to surrounding tissues. The graph (6) shows a suggested temperature profile during cancer dialysis treatment.
