Heat – whether from a carefully created and controlled fever or from hyperthermia delivered by microwaves, radio frequency or ultrasound – is increasingly being used as a cancer treatment.

There are two theories as to why this might work. First, a fever within the body produces a state in which the immune system becomes hypersensitive, detects that the cancer cells are not normal and attacks them. It may be that, if we have a strong immune system, it is destroying cancer cells every day but, on occasion, some cells are missed and cancer develops. In the USA scientists are experimenting with giving cervical cancer patients a bio-engineered form of listeria (not the actual disease) - both it and salmonella are instantly recognisable by the body as enemy bacteria – thus hoping to spark the immune system into rising up to fight it and the cancer.

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