Enhanced Radiotherapy Sensitivity of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma by Stretchable Hyperthermia Patches

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has a high incidence of cervical lymph node metastases, for which radiotherapy is a primary treatment. Hyperthermia is an important means to enhance the effectiveness of radiotherapy. However, the utility of conventional hyperthermia techniques in the clinic is compromised by limitations including bulky equipment, temperature inhomogeneity, and restricted treatment areas. This study developed a novel, soft, stretchable, and optically transparent hyperthermia patch based on a silver nanowire network to improve radiotherapy efficacy. The patch allowed precise temperature control (±1 °C) via low-voltage driving (0.7 V), conformed comfortably to the skin for uniform heating, and enabled real-time monitoring to prevent burns. Experimental results showed that by combining the patch-based hyperthermia therapy, radiotherapy reduced the clonogenic survival rate of C666-1 cells by 54.17%, elevate apoptosis by 90.56%, and suppressed migration by 55.51%. The tumor-bearing mouse models showed that the synergistic therapy increased the tumor apoptosis by 41.31% over radiotherapy alone and showed a better trend than the hyperthermia group and the radiotherapy group in controlling the tumor volume and weight on the third day after the experiment. The combination therapy aggravated the DNA damage while inhibiting DNA damage repair pathway activation. The reduction in MMP9 release in the combined treatment group suggested that hyperthermia pretreatment may inhibit tumor invasion and metastasis at the molecular level in vivo. This technology offers a portable solution with precise thermal control and real-time monitoring for the radioresistant advanced NPC, thereby facilitating the clinical translation of hyperthermia-radiotherapy synergy.