Patients with an advanced tumor in the head and neck area are standardly treated with radiation, possibly in combination with chemotherapy or protein therapy. The chance of recovery with this standard treatment after 5 years is only around 50%. The side effects of treatment with radiation with or without chemotherapy are significant. In order to achieve better healing, we are looking for a new additional treatment option to radiation, which has few additional side effects and no additional long-term damage.
Research direction/proposed solution
We are thinking of heat treatment or thermotherapy: heating the tumor and lymph nodes to 40-43 degrees Celsius, comparable to the temperature during fever. Heating is done weekly shortly after irradiation with a device specially developed by Erasmus MC, called the Hypercollar3D. This heats the tumor and glands in a targeted manner using microwave radiation.
Relevance
In the Netherlands, more than 3,000 patients are diagnosed with head and neck cancer every year and more than 900 die from this disease every year. Thermotherapy intrinsically has a low risk of added late side effects and has a favorable cost profile. This makes thermotherapy a potentially attractive treatment for both the patient and society.
Research questions
Our hypothesis is that there is an optimal dosage of heat treatment in the head and neck area that is well tolerated and has no acute or late side effects. We want to determine this optimal heat treatment in this project. In addition, we want to look for new ways to measure the temperature in both normal and tumor tissue. This is important for safety in the case of normal tissue and for effectiveness in the case of tumor tissue.
Research design
We will slowly build up the heat dose in groups of 3-6 patients in five steps. We will test the first two dose levels with groups of three patients and then groups of six patients. We will closely monitor any side effects during and the first six months after treatment. If there are too many side effects or serious side effects occur at a certain dose level, then the maximum dose has been reached and the study is finished. We will also develop methods to measure the temperature in the mouth and neck.
Expected outcomes
Through this research, the optimal dosage of heat treatment in the head and neck area is determined. With this optimal dosage, we want to see in a clinical follow-up study, with multiple institutes and in more patients, whether a better chance of healing can be observed by adding thermotherapy to the radiation treatments.
Description of steps needed to implement results
After the optimal dose of the heat treatment has been found and the device is commercially available to other institutions, a larger follow-up study can take place with multiple institutions. This study can then look at the effectiveness of adding thermotherapy to radiotherapy compared to the standard treatment with radiotherapy alone. The optimal dose is used, as will be determined by this project.
2023-12-15 01:15:13
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