Predicting the Sensitivity of Human Cancers to Combined Chemotherapy and Hyperthermia

It has been known for quite some time the action of various kinds of antitumor drugs is enhanced when they are administered in combination with hyperthermia, be it in vitro (Hahn 1975; Gross and Parsons 1977; Mizuno et al. 1980), in animals (Marmor 1979; Twentyman et al. 1980, Yamada et al. 1985), or in humans (Stehlin et al. 1975; Arcangeli et al. 1979; Storm et al. 1984). The individual tumors, however, seem to reveal different sensitivities to hyperthermia when the latter is combined with antitumor drugs. With respect to the prediction of tumor response to chemotherapy, clonogenic assay (Salmon et al. 1978; von Hoff et al. 1981; Mann et al. 1982) and subrenal capsule assay (Bogden et al. 1981; Griffin et al. 1983; Levi et al. 1984) have already demonstrated a high probability of clinical response as in vitro and in vivo assays, respectively. These results have added considerably to the possibility that the response to thermochemotherapy for human cancers can also be predicted.