[Regional deep hyperthermia of sarcoma for improving local tumor control]

48 patients with advanced sarcomas were treated with regional hyperthermia (RHT) and systemic chemotherapy (ifosfamide/VP-16). 92% of the patients had been pretreated before entering the study. Pretreatment consisted of chemotherapy (33/48), surgery (9/48) or surgery plus irradiation (2/48). Following the conventional treatment, the patients had either relapsed (30/48) or had shown progressive disease (14/48) at the primary site with or without metastases. In 43 patients the overall response rate [5 complete responders (CR) and 6 partial responders (PR)] was 26%, 17 patients revealed no change (NC) and 15 patients showed local tumor progression (PD). A significant correlation of tumor response (responders [CR + PR] versus non-responders [PD]) with intratumoral averaged temperatures could be observed.