Thermal therapy has been used in cancer therapy for decades and hyperthermic
chemotherapy perfusion, specifically, has been used in the treatment of mesothelioma
but without data as to the optimal conditions.
In a study performed at UCLA, doctors sought to define in vitro the most
effective strategy for the use of thermal therapy in pleural mesothelioma.
They exposed three human mesothelioma cell lines to varying hyper and
hyperthermic conditions using either a standard metabolic MTS absorbance
assay or a standard clonogenic (which is a microbiology technique for
studying the effectiveness of specific agents on the survival and proliferation
of cells). Each cell line was then expanded and exposed to varying combination
of hyperthermia, hypothermia and/or chemotherapy – using chemotherapy
agents cisplatin, gemicitabine, and/or pemetrexed.
Their findings show that thermal therapy appears to be most effective
when using hypothermia rather than hyperthermia, and chemotherapy appears
to be most effective when using two drug combinations over one individually.