Hypothesis: The most common cause of palliative resection and recurrence in gastric cancer is peritoneal seeding. This study evaluates the efficacy of intraperitoneal chemohyperthermia after cytoreductive surgery in patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis arising from gastric cancer.
Design: Prospective clinical trial.
Setting: Surgical department at a university academic hospital.
Patients: Forty-nine consecutive patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis treated between January 1, 1989, and February 29, 2000.
Interventions: All patients underwent intraperitoneal chemohyperthermia with mitomycin C (40-60 mg); 21 patients had previously undergone extensive cytoreductive surgery.
Main outcome measures: Clinicopathologic factors that affect overall survival rates.
Results: With median follow-up of 99 months, overall median survival was 10.3 months. Two factors were significant independent predictors of survival by multivariate analysis: preoperative ascites (P =.04) and completeness of cancer resection (CCR) by cytoreductive surgery (P<.001). Median survival was 21.3 months for patients with CCR-0 (macroscopic complete resection) or CCR-1 (diameter of residual nodules <5 mm) and 6.1 months for patients with CCR-2 (diameter of residual nodules >5 mm) (P<.001). Four patients survived longer than 5 years.
Conclusions: An aggressive management strategy combining intraperitoneal chemohyperthermia with cytoreductive surgery is effective for patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis arising from gastric cancer. In highly selected patients (good general status, resectable primary tumor, resectable peritoneal carcinomatosis), this therapy may result in long-term survival.