A small clinical trial involving 122 patients were randomly assigned to compare the effect of hyperthermia in combination with radiotherapy before proceeding to surgery vs radiation to surgery vs surgery alone.

The results revealaed a significant improvement in 5-year survival rates of more than 15% (relative 40% increase) Vs RT alone then surgery; and a 26% improvement vs surgery without treatment; a relative 65% improvement in treatment outcomes.

Another way of looking at this is the number (percentage) patients alive at at five years; 73.7%, 57.1% and 58.8% for the HRT, RT and control group, respectively.  The results strongly suggest a benefit to the addition of HT to preoperative radiation treatment in rectal carcinoma patients.

A small double armed control trail involving 115 patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (T4N0M0) compared radiation alone with radiation plus hyperthermia; and revealed an almost 6 fold increased in the amount of patients alive at 5 years.

“The 5-year OS rates were significantly better in the HT group, 35.6% versus 6.6%; p<0.05.”