Therapeutic use of heat is probably the oldest form of cancer therapy in the history of medicine. Historians believe even the ancient Egyptians burned out tumor wounds using a branding iron.1 Caustic agents, or heat, destroy tissues in a process known as cauterization, which can also be used to stop bleeding. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates was convinced that if cancer could not be cured by heat, then it was incurable.2
Hyperthermia is a type of artificially induced fever through the therapeutic application of heat. It's used to overheat either the entire organism (whole-body hyperthermia) or part of it (local hyperthermia) under controlled conditions.
Fever therapy triggers certain reactions in the whole organism, in the immune system or specifically in the tumor that are useful for treating cancer. These effects include triggering an immune modulation or “internal tumor vaccination” in which heat causes cancer cells to form what are called heat shock proteins on their surface. This makes them more “visible” to the immune system, which can then attack them.3
Heat as an integrative therapy
Hyperthermia treatments can also be helpful when carried out alongside radiation
