THE RESPONSE OF SKIN MICROCIRCULATION TO HYPERTHERMIC STRESS IN TUMORPATIENTS

Hyperthermia and its effect on tissues are topics of great interest to scientists working in the area of radiation biology and medicine, It has been shown by many workers, that blood now in malignant tissue dis plays a different response to heating than that in normal tissue. Init ially, the blood flow in tumour tissue is greater than that in normal tissue, and when heat is applied there is an increase in blood flow. T he extent of the increase in now with increasing temperature is greate r in normal tissue than in tumour tissue. In our laboratory we studied the effect of temperature on skin blood flow. The skin overlying tumo ur tissue was compared with skin with no underlying abnormality in can cer patients, and with the skin in healthy control subjects. The instr ument used was a Laser Doppler Perfusion Monitor, Pf3 (Perimed, Stockh olm, Sweden). We found that the skin overlying tumour tissue showed hi gher basal perfusion than the skin at the contralateral site with no u nderlying abnormality. The skin above tumour tissue showed a reduced p erfusion response to an increase in temperature (vascular sluggishness ) compared to skin at the contralateral site and skin in healthy contr ols. The reduction in thermal response depends on the size of the tumo ur.