Hyperthermia Treatment: Heat Against Cancer
Hyperthermia or the overheating of the body from the outside in contrast to fever therapy.
Very often it happens that standard therapies are not capable of stopping tumor growth permanently. For a while now there has been an additional possibility in the fight against cancer – hyperthermia. The body temperature is increased specifically in an attempt to destroy cancer cells.
Meanwhile Deutsche Krebshilfe (German Cancer Aid) refers to hyperthermia as “the fourth weapon against cancer”.
Hyperthermia treatment overheats the tumor tissue from the outside; the heat has no effect on healthy tissue. Basic research since the ’70s has verified that temperatures above 38.5°C – 40.5ºC damage tumor cells, destroying them or impeding their growth.
Overheating tumor cells causes a lack of oxygen. This results in over-acidification of the heated cells and a lack of nutrients in the tumor. The cell metabolism is destroyed, resulting in cell death (apoptosis) of the tumor cells.
Hyperthermia can make chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy more effective. In isolated cases, previously ineffective chemotherapy or radio therapy can be made effective in combination with hyperthermia.
The technical equipment available in our Centre is capable of producing specific overheating both locally and in the whole body.
Tumor cells are invisible for the immune system. But they change under the influence of heat. They then form “heat shock proteins”, certain proteins which appear on the surface of the degenerated cells. The body’s own immune system detects these proteins as extraneous cells, giving a clear indication for the immune cells to fight the cancer cells. Healthy cells do not form heat shock proteins.
Hyperthermia is a particularly effective supplement to the holistic cancer therapy used successfully in our office for many years.