Radiofrequency capacitive hyperthermia combined with irradiation or chemotherapy for patients with invasive bladder cancers.

To assess the immediate therapeutic clinical efficacy and long-term outcome, hyperthermia in combination with irradiation or chemotherapeutic agent was used in 46 patients with invasive bladder cancer. Radiohyperthermia (RH) was employed in 19 cases and chemohyperthermia (CH) in 27 cases. Complete response (CR) was obtained in 5 and partial response (PR) in 15 of the 46 cases. One-year survival rates by the Kaplan-Meier method were 65.0% in the CR/PR group and 46.2% in the no change (NC)/progressive disease (PD) group. Five-year survival rates were 43.8% and 18.3%, showing no difference in survival rate between the CR/PR group and the NC/PD group The overall median survival period for the CR/PR group without metastasis was 61.6 months compared to 32.3 months for the NC/PD group without metastasis (P < 0.05).