Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) is a highly
concentrated, heated chemotherapy treatment delivered directly into
the abdomen during surgery. Unlike systemic chemotherapy delivery,
which circulates throughout the body via the bloodstream, HIPEC
delivers chemotherapy directly to cancer cells in the abdomen. This
allows for higher doses of chemotherapy treatment. Heating the
solution also improves the absorption of chemotherapy drugs by
tumors and destroy microscopic cancer cells that remain in the
abdomen after surgery.
Before patients receive HIPEC treatment,
doctors perform cytoreductive surgery—a procedure to debulk, or
reduce, the size of a cancerous tumor — within the abdomen. When as
many tumors ( as much of a tumor) as possible have been removed, a
heated, sterilized chemotherapy solution is delivered to the
abdomen to penetrate and destroy remaining cancer cells. The
solution is 41 to 42 degrees Celsius, about the temperature of a
warm bath. It’s circulated throughout the abdomen for
approximately 90 minutes. The solution is then drained from the
abdomen, and the incision is closed.
HIPEC is a treatment option
for people who have advanced surface spread of cancer within the
abdomen, but no cancer outside the abdomen. In these patients, the
cancer is seen in the form of sand like particles over the inner
layer of the abdominal cavity called as the peritoneal sheath. Such
type of spread is usually seen in the following cancers:
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