A modern view on thermoradiotherapy in integrative treatment of prostate cancer

Background. The article presents an overview of literature data on integrative treatment of prostate cancer using local hyperthermia.

Aim. To analyze modern Russian and foreign studies on the use of local hyperthermia in integrative treatment of prostate cancer and its long-term treatment results.

Materials and methods. The search for relevant sources was performed using the PubMed, eLIBRARY databases (publications from 2008 to 2023 were included) with key words “prostate cancer”, “local hyperthermia”, “radiation therapy”. For analysis of radiobiological aspects, sources published since 2004 were considered.

Results. A review of the literature data shows that of all the methods related to physical modifications through radiation, local hyperthermia is considered to be the most promising. Analysis of randomized studies on the use of local hyperthermia in integrative treatment of prostate cancer published by foreign and Russian researchers showed immediate and long-term results demonstrating the positive effect of thermoradiotherapy.

Conclusion. The combination of local hyperthermia and radiation therapy seems to be an innovative strategy to improve tumor control and increase the effectiveness of treatment. However, there are currently no data on the use of thermoradiotherapy using new irradiation techniques, such as intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), volumetric modulated radiation therapy (VMAT) which utilize modern linear accelerators. There is also no consensus on the use of thermoradiomodification in relation to the amount of exposure to the prostate, and therefore further research is required.

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