How Hyperthermia Works / Triggers Natural Immune Response
Cancer cells are often undetected by the body’s own immune system because their surface antigens are hidden. Without visible surface antigens, there is no way for our body’s immune system to detect these cancer cells and destroy them. The heat from hyperthermia treatment unmasks the hidden surface antigens of cancer cells, allowing for the body’s immune system to detect and destroy these cells.
The Therapeutic “Fever Range” of Hyperthermia (between 39-43°C or 102-109°F) is now understood to:
- Help the immune system “see” tumor cells, allowing the natural killer (NK) immune cells to destroy the tumor cells.
- Cause the tumors to release heat shock proteins (HSPs) which do several things including activating natural killer (NK) cells AND then release a tumor specific antigen, which acts like a specific alert messenger to the immune system of your specific cancer which then alert something called CD8+ T cells or “Natural Killer T Cells” to destroy tumor cells.
- Release Exosomes which are vesicles that transfer potential tumor antigens between cells allowing the “alert messages” of the cancer to travel through the body.
- Directly activate immune cells including natural killer (NK) cells, dendritic (DC) cells, natural killer T cells (CD8* T), enabling them to do their job to destroy cancer cells.
- Improve the tumor vasculature, not only making radiation and chemotherapy more effective, but also allowing more T cells and other immune cells to enter the tumor to destroy cancer cells.
To schedule an appointment, please call the Center for Thermal Oncology at (888) 580-5900 or schedule an appointment online.