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MINI REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Radiation Oncology
Volume 14 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1428065
Hyperthermia and radiotherapy: physiological basis for a synergistic effect
Provisionally accepted- 1 University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- 2 University Hospitals of Geneva, Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
In cancer treatment, mild hyperthermia (HT) represents an old, but recently revived opportunity to increase the efficacy of radiotherapy (RT) without increasing side effects, thereby widening the therapeutic window. HT disrupts cellular homeostasis by acting on multiple targets, and its combination with RT produces synergistic antitumoral effects on specific pathophysiological mechanisms, associated to DNA damage and repair, hypoxia, stemness and immunostimulation. HT is furthermore associated to direct tumor cell kill, particularly in higher temperature levels. A phenomenon of temporary resistance to heat, known as thermotolerance, follows each HT session.HT is furthermore associated to direct tumor kill due to toxic shock but also thermotolerance. Cancer treatment requires innovative concepts and combinations to be tested but, for a meaningful development of clinical trials, the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the tested modalities is essential. In this mini-review, we aimed to describe the synergistic effects of the combination of HT with RT as well as the phenomena of thermal shock and thermotolerance, in order to stimulate clinicians in new, clinically relevant concepts and combinations, which become particularly relevant in the era of technological advents in both modalities but also cancer immunotherapy.
Keywords: hyperthermia, Radiotherapy, cancer biology, hypoxia, DNA-repair, Tumor Microenvironment, Immunotherapy, thermotolerance. Article type: Mini-review
Received: 05 May 2024; Accepted: 17 Jul 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Righini, Durham and Tsoutsou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Pelagia G. Tsoutsou, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
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