Cancer Treatments
Heat Therapy

Ok, first think of the name—“Heat Therapy.” That right there doesn’t sound like such a fun thing to go through. The heat therapy treatment involves exposing either part or all of the body to high temperatures, and it’s usually used to boost other forms of therapy, like radiation or chemotherapy.

There are three major types of heat therapy: local, regional, and whole-body. Local heat therapy involves applying heat to a very small area, like a tumor. The area may be heated externally, with high-frequency waves, or internally using one of several types of sterile sticks, or probes (thin, heated wires or hollow tubes filled with warm implanted microwave antennae) and radiofrequency electrodes.

In regional heat therapy, an organ or limb is heated. One method, called perfusion, involves removing the patient's blood, heating it, and then pumping it into a region to be heated internally.

Whole-body heat therapy is used to treat matastatic cancers (cancers that have spread). It involves the use of warm blankets, hot wax, inductive coils (like those in electric blankets), or thermal chambers (similar to large incubators).

Now here’s some of the side effects that come with heat therapy!

• It can cause internal bleeding.
• There is a high death rate associated with whole-body heat therapy.
• It causes severe burns.
• If the tumor being treated is over a bone, the treatment can cause bone pain.
• It can damage your liver and kidneys.
• It can cause brain hemorrhaging and seizures.
• It can give you blisters on the parts of your body being treated.
• You feel like you have a big sunburn all the time.
• You can’t do some of the things of everyday life, and you have to do additional treatments everyday at home.

These are only some of the side effects that come with going through heat treatment. The only way you can avoid these side effects is to either start another treatment or don't smoke, which make your life much more enjoyable, longer, and easier.

Smoking might be “cool” and “fun” while you’re doing it, but just think of what you’re doing to your body and the different diseases you could develop, and then the treatments you would have to go through to try and cure these diseases. The side effects of the heat treatments are some of the weakest of all of the treatments that you could go through to cure your cancer or any other disease that might develop from smoking.

If you want to feel like you have the world’s worst sunburn 24/7, then be my guest and smoke; but if you want to live a happy life along with your friends and family, please think wisely before smoking.

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This page was created by Meghan.

Some pages on this website are created and maintained by kids—members of Texas 4-H.

All content is reviewed by Carol Rice, R.N., Ph.D., Professor and Extension Health Specialist, Regents Fellow.

This site has been provided to you by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Texas 4-H, and the Texas Cancer Council.

Last updated: 9 January, 2008

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