Chemothermal therapy for localized heating and ablation of tumor

Chemothermal therapy is a new hyperthermia treatment on tumor using heat released from exothermic chemical reaction between the injected reactants and the diseased tissues. With the highly minimally invasive feature and localized heating performance, this method is expected to overcome the ubiquitous shortcomings encountered by many existing hyperthermia approaches in ablating irregular tumor. This review provides a relatively comprehensive review on the latest advancements and state of the art in chemothermal therapy. The basic principles and features of two typical chemothermal ablation strategies (acid-base neutralization-reaction-enabled thermal ablation and alkali-metal-enabled thermal/chemical ablation) are illustrated. The prospects and possible challenges facing chemothermal ablation are analyzed. The chemothermal therapy is expected to open many clinical possibilities for precise tumor treatment in a minimally invasive way.