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Effects of Whole Body Hyperthermia (41.8°C) on the Frequency of Tumor Cells in the Peripheral Blood of Patients with Advanced Malignancies¹

Departments of Oncology/Hematology [S. H-B., K. B., A. C., D. A., D. K. H.] and Anesthesiology [A. N.], and Institute of Tumor Biology [M. O., K. P.], University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg D-20246, Germany

Purpose: Combining heat with antineoplastic drugs has produced evidence of antitumor synergism. An increasing number of trials are investigating whole body hyperthermia (WBH) in combination with chemotherapy in patients with advanced malignancies. Here we investigated whether the hyperdynamic state of the circulation as a consequence of WBH may stimulate dissemination of malignant cells.

Experimental Design: WBH in combination with chemotherapy was administered by a radiant heat device to 20 consecutive patients with advanced epithelial malignancies. One WBH session lasted for 4 h (90 min heating time, 60 min plateau at 41.8°C, and 60–80 min cooling). Peripheral blood was drawn before WBH treatment (baseline), at the end of the plateau (1 h), and 24 h and 48 h thereafter. After removal of leukocytes using anti-CD45 magnetic beads, circulating tumor cells were detected immunocytochemically using the monoclonal antibody A45-B/B3, which binds to a common epitope present on various cytokeratins.

Results: The method used to detect tumor cells in the peripheral blood proved to be specific and very sensitive (detection limit 1 tumor cell per 1.7 x 10⁵ peripheral blood mononuclear cell). Before WBH, 6 of 20 patients had cyto-keratin-positive cells in their blood. A treatment-induced increase in the number of circulating tumor cells became statistically significant at 24 h after WBH (P = 0.043) and was detected in a total of 9 patients, 5 of whom had no detectable malignant cells at baseline. There was no evidence of a correlation between an increase in the number of circulating tumor cells and increased metastasis frequency.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that WBH might induce a temporary release of tumor cells into the circulation, but this spread appears to be clinically not significant in patients with advanced malignancies.

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