Adjuvant pelvic hyperthermia in advanced cervical carcinoma. I. Feasibility, thermometry and device comparison.

From 1981 to 1989, a total of 26 women with locally or regionally advanced carcinoma of the uterine cervix were treated with radiotherapy (RT) and pelvic regional hyperthermia (HT), in the Divisions of Radiation Oncology at the University of Utah Medical Center (UU) and the Kenneth Morris Jr Cancer Hospital of the University of Southern California (USC). HT was produced by the BSD-1000 HT system and the annular phased array (AA) applicator usually driven at 60–65 MHz, or the BSD-2000 HT system and the Sigma-60 (S60) applicator usually driven at 70–85 MHz. During the HT sessions acute toxicity was common, particularly because of pain within or outside the applicator, which was power-limiting in 43% of the patients overall. Pain was more easily manipulated, but more commonly power-limiting with the S60. Systemic stress was power-limiting in 22% of patients treated with the AA, but in no patients with the S60. Detailed thermal mapping and temperature analysis were performed on 26 patients. The mean overall a...