Re: Cancer treatment question

["M. Woo" <m-woo@uiuc.edu>]

Scott D Kniffin wrote:

> One of my co-workers is going to be getting radiation therapy as a follow
> up to cancer surgery and the radiation is to be followed by about 30 min of
> heat therapy.  I've covered the radiation aspects with this person, but the
> heat follow up is a bit of a mystery.  The doctor said something about it
> helping the radiation work better.  Can anyone give me a more satisfactory
> answer to pass along, please?

Scott, I've been out of the radiation research field for a while now,
but one of the things our lab was interested in was the mechanism of
combined radiation and hyperthermia treatments on proliferating cells. 
At the time, the prevailing theory for the hyperthermic enhancement of
radiation therapy was that the hyperthermic treatment inhibited DNA
repair, thus increasing the efficiency of the "killing" action of
radiation.  The real trick was to localize the hyperthermia to the tumor
volume and spare the surrounding normal tissue from overheating.

Anyhow, as I said, I've been out of the field for a while and haven't
kept current.  Perhaps someone will have a better answer.

-- 
Melissa Woo, Health Physicist <mailto:m-woo@uiuc.edu>
Div. of Environmental Health & Safety
101 S. Gregory St., MC-225, Urbana, IL 61801
ph 217.244.7233 fax 217.244.6594 <http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/m-woo/>
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