For many people who are diagnosed with stomach cancers, the prognosis is bleak. Now, there is a new protocol for treating these patients, which uses ‘hot chemotherapy’.
“People who have stomach cancers do not respond well to chemotherapy at normal temperatures, since the stomach lining acts as a shield against the chemicals,” Sreekumar Pillai, director of Oncology at MIOT hospitals, said. He was speaking on the sidelines of the Indo-UK HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intra Peritoneal Chemotherapy) Meet that started here on Friday.
“In the hot chemotherapy method, the patient undergoes a cyto-reductive surgery (CRS) where the stomach lining is removed and the chemicals are administered at a higher temperature (42 degree centigrade),” he said.
A team of surgeons from the Christie NHS Foundation Trust along with MIOT surgeons will be performing a live CRS-HIPEC surgery on a 50-year-old woman who has stage-III primary peritoneal carcinoma. “We selected a patient who will definitely benefit from the CRS-HIPEC procedure for the live demonstration. Since this is a new procedure in this part of the world, the live surgery will help doctors to clear their doubts,” Prithvi Mohandas, managing director of MIOT International, said.
C.R. Selvasekar, consultant general and colorectal and laparoscopic surgeon, Christie NHS Foundation Trust, said, “The CRS-HIPEC procedure, when used on carefully chosen patients, can increase the life expectancy to one year for 80 per cent of them and three years for 60 per cent.”
The CRS-HIPEC procedure is only recommended for certain kinds of cancers. “Only around 10 per cent of the patients with colorectal cancers will benefit from the surgery; but these patients will be able to survive with good quality of life,” he added.
