The role of local hyperthermia in the treatment of liver tumors and liver metastases

White Paper Liver treatment with the combination of regional Hyperthermia

In addition to actual liver tumors, metastatic spread in the liver is a common occurrence in the course of tumor diseases. If the tumor lesions are locally defined and their number is manageable, microsurgical interventions (RFA, LITT) are the method of choice, but systemic therapies up to and including radiation treatment are utilized as well. The situation becomes problematic when the metastases permeate the entire liver, leaving few options for surgical removal. In such difficult cases, hyperthermia has repeatedly proven to be a promising complementary therapy option. Celsius42 customers have time after time reported amazing clinical outcomes in cases involving co-treatment with hyperthermia.

This prompted us to put together this White Paper on the treatment of liver tumors and liver metastases with hyperthermia. Our document starts with an explanation of preclinical studies for reaching the desired temperature, introduces an appropriate protocol for step-up heating, and focuses on the results of in-vivo temperature measurements in patients. Following a discussion of the available studies on hyperthermia and liver tumors, we then present different therapy options and four case studies. Although liver tumors have not been studied to the same extent as other diseases such as head and neck tumors or ovarian tumors, the potential of hyperthermia in this tumor entity is of great interest and deserves more attention in the clinical situation than it currently receives.