The Effect of Hyperthermia on Liver Cell Viability

Hyperthermia is a treatment for liver cancer where the tumor is exposed to a relatively high heat temperature. This process is designed to make the tumor more susceptible to chemotherapy. My thought process was that if hyperthermia can kill cancerous cells, then there will be negative long term effects on the noncancerous cells surrounding the tumor. The project experimented on Kidney cells because the Kidney and Liver both go through the process of filtration. This means that the Kidney cells should give similar results that Liver cells would. Kidney cells were heated at 40 degrees Celsius for time amounts of 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours. The control was not heated for any amount of time. The experiment was also performed on Danio rerio which was a model organism and they were heated for 30 minutes and 1 hour. During experimentation all of the zebrafish died. This may be because the zebrafish were heated to a temperature much higher than their normal temperature. The results from the cell experiment showed that very few cells died and the results of the MTT assay shows that all of the cells were healthy. Overall I supported my null hypothesis that hyperthermia would have no negative long term effects on the liver, and is a safe treatment for Liver cancer. Overall the noncancerous cells are healthy after being exposed to heat.