BSD Medical (BSD) has presented clinical study data showing that hyperthermia, using the BSD-2000 Hyperthermia System, combined with chemotherapy has the potential to improve control rate and long-term survival for the treatment of children with high-risk cancer who have a dismal prognosis.
BSD said that the clinical study data will be presented by Rudiger Wessalowski, associate professor at the Clinic of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany, at the annual Society for Thermal Medicine (STM) meeting to be held in Clearwater, Florida from April 23 to April 26, 2010.
The treatment involves cisplatin-based chemotherapy combined with deep hyperthermia using the BSD-2000-3D/MR Hyperthermia System. The cancers treated were largely non-cranial germ cell and rhabdomyosarcomas. The study analyzed the ability of the BSD-2000-3D/MR to non-invasively measure the temperature changes during delivery of hyperthermia.
The report involved 628 treatments delivered to 115 children (71 with tumor recurrence and 44 with tumors that could not be surgically removed or that had responded poorly to previous therapies).
Dr Wessalowski said: “By multimodality therapy with regional hyperthermia, local tumor control rate and long-term survival can be improved in children with high-risk tumors with dismal prognoses. Multiple channel heat applicators and non-invasive MR temperature monitoring for childhood cancer can produce precise target volumes with substantial sparing of normal tissues.”