A novel thermal treatment modality for controlling breast tumor growth and progression

The new concept of keeping primary tumor under control in situ to suppress distant foci sheds light on the novel treatment of metastatic tumor. Hyperthermia is considered as one of the means for controlling tumor growth. In this study, a novel thermal modality was built to introduce hyperthermia effect on tumor to suppress its growth and progression using 4T1 murine mammary carcinoma, a common animal model of metastatic breast cancer. A mildly raised temperature (i.e.39°C) was imposed on the skin surface of the implanted tumor using a thermal heating pad. Periodic heating (12 hours per day) was carried out for 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, and 21 days, respectively. The tumor growth rate was found significantly decreased in comparison to the control without hyperthermia. Biological evidences associated with tumor angiogenesis and metastasis were examined using histological analyses. Accordingly, the effect of mild hyperthermia on immune cell infiltration into tumors was also investigated. It was demonstrated that a delayed tumor growth and malignancy progression was achieved by mediating tumor cell apoptosis, vascular injury, degrading metastasis potential and as well as inhibiting the immunosuppressive cell myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) recruitment. Further mechanistic studies will be performed to explore the quantitative relationship between tumor progression and thermal dose in the near future.