The 68-year-old Kaysville woman had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had a breast removed in 2002. Her doctor told her the cancer had returned in a different form and recommended she try a therapy that is relatively new to Utah for oncology.

Called hyperthermia, the treatment exposes body tissue to high temperatures - about 110 degrees - to damage and kill cancer cells. It is almost always used with radiation therapy or chemotherapy. It increases blood flow, and the oxygen it carries, to cells, which makes the other therapies work better.

Hyperthermia is primarily used for cancers of the head and neck, breast, cervix, prostate, colon, skin and sarcomas.

Leland Rogers, a radiation oncologist at GammaWest in Salt Lake City, launched the hyperthermia program at Ogden Regional Medical Center and Salt Lake Regional Medical Center.

"I think this is very promising for certain patients," Rogers said. "This will ultimately be broadly applicable."

Ellen Jones, an assistant professor of radiation oncology, led a study of hyperthermia at Duke University in North Carolina to determine how heat and radiation interact in tumors.

In a study published in May in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, she and other researchers discovered that two-thirds of breast cancer patients who had mastectomies saw their recurrent tumors disappear when hyperthermia was used. About 10,000 breast cancer patients each year will experience regrowth of a tumor on the chest wall after the entire breast has been removed.

Jones hopes hyperthermia will become standard care for many cancer patients.

"The heat treatment kills cells that escape from radiation and chemotherapy," Jones said.

During the sessions, patients lie on their back on a mesh table, and a Plexiglas cylinder slides over the tumor site. The device is FDA-approved for superficial tumors: those that are 3 centimeters or less from the surface of the skin. It is made by BSD Medical Corp., a Salt Lake City company, which plans to file for federal approval of a more advanced hyperthermia machine that can treat tumors found deeper in the body.

"It shouldn't be painful," Jones said. "We often premedicate with Valium or something in that pharmaceutical family to help patients be comfortable or relax. Some people bring along music or a book."

Two times a week, Nybo undergoes hyperthermia and then radiation, spending about eight hours a day at Ogden Regional.

But she says the payoff is worth the time.

"It gets quite warm, but it doesn't hurt," she said. "It is clearing it up. My doctor is excited about the progress."

chamilton@sltrib.com