Therapeutic heating goes back as far as 3000 B.C., but the therapeutic use of a local temperature rise of 5-20 degree(s)C above normal body temperature, called hyperthermia, was carried out only in the past few decades, if moxibustion is disregarded. Results obtained by various treatment modalities such as optical waves (laser light), microwaves (MW), radio frequency current (rf), or ultrasound (US) are compared, and a theory based on the assumption that tumor formation can be regarded as some sort of disturbance in the signal processing system of the given biological structure is presented. The author suggests that not the locally generated heat alone but the elevated temperature in relation to several environmental factors is responsible for cell killing. Therefore, the modality of creating hyperthermia may be of significance since various methods may change the thermal behavior of the cell environment in a specific way, which means that using two or more modalities the synergetic behavior could be exploited for a better result.

Date Published: 1 November 1991
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 1525, Future Trends in Biomedical Applications of Lasers, (1 November 1991); doi: 10.1117/12.48206

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1525:
Future Trends in Biomedical Applications of Lasers
Lars Othar Svaasand, Editor(s)