An in-vitro study of the effects of temperature on breast cancer cells: Experiments and models

This paper presents an implantable biomedical device for the localized killing of cancer cells through hyperthermia. Heating, accomplished via resistive heating, is modeled using numerical heat transfer techniques, which are tested under experimental conditions. The effect of temperature in the therapeutic domain of 37 to 45 °C as studied on breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 is also reported. The results show the predicted temperature variations are consistent with temperature measurements obtained from the experimental set-ups. The paper also examines the effects of isothermal heating on the cell morphology. Isothermal heating is shown to cause significant physical changes in the cell cytoskeleton. Finally, the paper explores the effects of hyperthermia on cell growth and cell death under isothermal and cyclic conditions. The underlying effects of heat shock protein expression are elucidated before discussing the implications of the results for cancer treatment via localized hyperthermia.