Brachytherapy and hyperthermia therapy developer BSD Medical announced that a phase III clinical study to treat pancreatic cancer with hyperthermia has been launched and is starting to recruit patients.
The Hyperthermia European Adjuvant Trial (HEAT) was announced and launched last month at the Society for Thermal Medicine annual meeting held in Portland, OR.
HEAT is a randomized, multicenter trial designed to compare treatment with hyperthermia and chemotherapy (gemcitabine plus cisplatin) to gemcitabine chemotherapy alone after standard surgical resection of the tumor. The study is being cosponsored by Klinikum der Universität München, Grosshadern, and the European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology (ESHO), BSD said.
Principal investigators Dr. Rolf Issels, PhD, and Dr. Katharina Lechner plan to enroll 350 patients.
Other clinical sites that will initially participate in the study include oncology cancer treatment clinic Fachklinik Bad Trissl in Oberaudorf, the Red Cross Hospital in Munich, the Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, the Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, and the Universitätsklinikum Tübingen. All of these sites use the BSD-2000 hyperthermia system.
An estimated 60,000 Europeans are expected to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during 2012.
