Heated Chemotherapy Drugs may Help Some With Difficult Cancers
Reported March 8, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — For some cancers, chemotherapy and conventional therapy attempts are not successful.
However, surgery involving the insertion of heated chemotherapy drugs directly into the abdomen may help improve survival rates and quality of life in some patients.
Physicians at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., have released survival results for six patients treated with a combination of surgery and intraperitoneal hyperthermic chemotherapy for tumors in the abdominal cavity that spread from the appendix or small bowel and advanced ovarian cancer. The technique is also useful for tumors that have spread from the colon, rectum and stomach.
Patients receiving the treatment had an average survival of 45.1 months, compared with 3.1 months for patients receiving traditional treatment.
Patients with peritoneal cancer that has spread from the small bowel represent both a unique diagnostic and treatment challenge, says Perry Shen, M.D., lead author of the study. While further study is needed, the data from this study suggest this combination seems to be an effective and attractive option in a very difficult situation.
SOURCE: Wake Forest University, March 5, 2005
