It’s called intraperitoneal hyperthermic chemotherapy. It works by flushing a heated chemotherapy drug through tissue surrounding a tumor immediately after the tumor’s removed. Perry Shen, an assistant professor of surgery at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC, says “That hopefully provides kind of a mop-up or cleanup of any residual cancer cells left behind.” Heat boosts the drug’s potency and weakens the tumor’s ability to repair itself. The targeted delivery means a higher concentration of the chemo reaches the cancer. “This procedure can provide them a longer-term survival than regular chemotherapy alone,” Dr. Shen says. Before the treatment, Blum’s prognosis was about six months. Now, he’s planning on staying healthy and strong for a long time. Some patients are undergoing treatment in an effort to prevent cancer from spreading to the abdomen from nearby organs like the appendix. There’s potential the heated chemo could be applied to some non-intestinal, hard-to-treat cancers, like pancreatic cancer. BACKGROUND: Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have shown that surgery plus inserting heated chemotherapy drugs directly into the abdomen can improve survival rates, as well as the quality of life, in patients who suffer from several types of cancer. These cancers include tumors of the abdominal cavity (peritoneal cancer, which affects the lining of the abdominal wall) that have spread to multiple organs, and …
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