Who Can Benefit from IP Chemo?
- Intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy refers to a method of treatment that directly administers chemo drugs into a patient’s abdomen following ovarian cancer surgery
- Because IP chemo makes it possible to deliver higher doses of the chemo drugs, it can offer increased survival benefits
- It’s important to note, however, that IP chemo is not without its challenges; the treatment is complicated to administer and can often cause more severe side effects than standard IV chemo
While the treatment can improve survival outcomes, Dr. Antonio Santillan-Gomez, a gynecologic oncologist at Texas Oncology in San Antonio, does point out that it can be a bit complicated to administer.
Read More “There are problems of convenience — convenience between patients, convenience from the physician, convenience from the facilities,” says Dr. Santillan-Gomez. “What you end up seeing is that something that should be adopted is not getting adopted because there are some convenience limitations.” Additionally, IP chemo can sometimes cause more severe side effects on account of the higher doses it allows for. According to Dr. Santillan-Gomez, this risk makes it really important to decide on a case-by-case basis who should and should not receive IP chemotherapy. “We have to individualize which patient will truly benefit from it from those ones which would not benefit,” he says.
Overall, though, clinical trial results do show that IP chemo has the potential to improve survival outcomes, making it what Dr. Santillan-Gomez calls “an important tool in the fight against ovarian cancer.” Plus, there are more clinical trials underway now that are testing treatments that may offer the same benefits of IP chemo but without the more severe side effects.
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