Introduction: Pelvic deep hyperthermia is an important treatment method for cervical cancer, and it has been widely used in Chinese clinics. However, this approach has not been widely adopted all over the world because of its uncertain efficacy and safety. This meta-analysis aims to review the efficacy and safety of radio-chemotherapy combined with local hyperthermia (HT) in the treatment of cervical cancer.
Material and methods: We searched foreign and domestic databases, and also searched the related references for additional information. Data extraction and quality assessment were conducted by two reviewers independently. Rev Man 5.3 software was used to perform the meta-analysis.
Results: The thermotherapy group had a significantly higher 1-year tumor-free survival rate (OR = 2.84, 95% CI (1.14–7.09), p = 0.03), complete remission rate (OR = 2.41, 95% CI (1.94–3.01), p < 0.00001) and overall effective rate (OR = 4.11, 95% CI (3.11–5.44), p < 0.00001) than the sole radio-chemotherapy group. The thermotherapy group had a significantly lower disease stability rate (OR = 0.44, 95% CI (0.32–0.62), p < 0.00001) and disease progression rate (OR = 0.15, 95% CI (0.08–0.28), p < 0.00001) when compared with the sole radio-chemotherapy group. Both groups were statistically similar with respect to adverse reactions.
Conclusions: Radio-chemotherapy combined with thermotherapy could significantly improve short-term curative effects for patients with cervical cancer. However, due to the limited quantity and quality of the included studies, more high-quality studies with a large sample size and long-term follow-up are still needed to verify the above conclusion and explore its long-term efficacy.