Local hyperthermia in head and neck cancer: mechanism, application and advance

// Shiyu Gao 1,2,* , Min Zheng 3,* , Xiaohua Ren 4 , Yaling Tang 1 and Xinhua Liang 1,5 1 State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China 2 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Stomatology, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 3 Department of Stomatology, Zhoushan Hospital, Zhoushan, China 4 Department of Stomatology, Sichuan Medical Science Academy and Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, Chengdu, China 5 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Xinhua Liang, email: // Yaling Tang, email: // Keywords : local hyperthermia; head and neck cancer; heat shock proteins (HSPs); nanoparticle; near-infrared (NIR) Received : October 24, 2015 Accepted : June 16, 2016 Published : June 30, 2016 Abstract Local hyperthermia (HT), particularly in conjunction with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy was useful for the treatment of human malignant tumors including head and neck cancer. However, at present it suffered from many limitations such as thermal dose control, target treatment regions and discrimination between healthy and cancer cells. Recent developments in nanotechnology have introduced novel and smart therapeutic nanomaterials to local HT of head and neck cancer that basically take advantage of various targeting approaches. The aim of this paper is to give a brief review of the mechanism, methods and clinical applications of local HT in head and neck cancer, mainly focusing on photothermal therapy (PTT) and nanoparticle-based hyperthermia.