Estimated number of children with cancer eligible for hyperthermia based on population- and treatment-related criteria

Patients with recurrent, progressed or otherwise, therapy resistant maligna ncies, whose diseases are not amenable to standard therapies, may benefit f rom hyperthermia (HT). Based on the number of 1600 newly diagnosed malignan cies, in patients <15 years of age, per annum of which 70% are successfully treated on the standard treatment protocols of the German Society of Pedia tric Oncology and Hematology (GPOH) and allowing for various drop-outs for reasons such as lack of established protocols, insufficient state of health and others, this means that as many as 100 children per annum can be expec ted to be enrolled into phase I/II trials in Germany. In view of the promis ing results in adults, phase I/II HT studies have also been performed in ch ildren and adolescents with recurrent or advanced malignancies including Ew ing's tumours, aggressive fibromatosis, and germ cell tumours. Recent resul ts in paediatric studies indicate the feasibility of both regional deep HT and whole body HT, and the best case analysis reveals promising response ra tes (CR+PR) as well as some long-term remissions. Technical modifications, due to the smaller body diameters, led to mean intratumoural temperatures i n paediatric patients similar to those reported for adults in whom an impro ved outcome was demonstrated. The results in children and adolescents even suggest that introduction of HT into standard treatment protocols may be pr omising to improve tumour response and event-free survival in patients with poor risk malignancies of childhood.