Hyperthermia and the immune response in cancer therapy

Summary There is considerable circumstantial evidence that the immune system is involved in the tumour regression and host cure that may follow curative local tumour heating in animals. There is little to indicate that a specific anti-tumour immune response is stimulated following heating or that heat per se is in any way unique in its effect on tumours. Available data suggest that the participation of the immune response involves macrophages and an increase in non-specific cellular and humoral immune competence. Total-body hyperthermia can depress these reactions, probably by direct physical damage to lymphoid tissues, and so predispose to enhanced metastasis. In man, results obtained with bacterial preparations are also consonant with a non-specific boosting effect on host defences via stimulation of the reticuloendothelial system. There is no definitive evidence for stimulation of an effective anti-tumour response in man following tumour heating, and no indication that total-body heating is deleterious to host defence mechanisms.Current data suggest that the more defined host response to tumour heating in animals is an artifact, due to the greater chemically induced antigenicity (immunogenicity) of animal tumours used for research.