Articles

The peritoneum is the serous membrane that covers the abdominal organs in whole or in part. Unfortunately, many tumors metastasize in this region of the body causing serious problems of local compression especially on the intestines.

How to deal with this kind of situation? Recently, surgery, which in the past wasn't much involved in the treatment of this condition, has taken a major role in its therapy. As a matter of fact, it is possible in some cases, but not always, to execute peritonectomies (removal of the peritoneum), in combination with chemo-hyperthermia during surgery.
Let me explain: During the intervention the patient's abdomen is perfused with a combination of several chemotherapy drugs heated to about 42 ° C, so that tissue penetration .
After the surgery, it is possible to execute upkeeping applications with capacitive hyperthermia (i.e. external). Another therapeutic option is chemotherapy.

The drugs to use are chosen depending on the organ from which the peritoneal metastases originated.

Unfortunately, this therapy often yelds disappointing results because of the difficulty for the drug to reach the seat of the disease, since the area is so sparsely vascularized.

At this point it may be useful a synergic therapy with capacitive hyperthermia which improves the local blood perfusion and favors a greater afflux of the drug to the targeted area. Moreover, it's important to bear in mind that hyperthermia has a direct antitumoral activity and locally potentiates the immune system activity.

Concluding: Hyperthermia finds in this condition its optimal field of application, through different methods and with good efficacy.

Dr. Carlo Pastore