To overcome drug resistance in relapsed ovarian cancer, an isolated perfusion system was used to generate a higher local exposure to cytostatic drugs. In addition to cisplatin as the cytostatic agent of choice, the present study combined adriamycin and mitomycin in a three drugs regime due to their increased cytotoxicity under hypoxia. A total of 107 patients, including 87 patients with relapses after previous platinum-containing therapies, 46 stage IIIC and 41 stage IV cases, were enrolled in the present study. A total of 25 patients were chemonaive, including 20 stage IIIC. The systemically pretreated patients in stage IIIC survived a median of 12.8 months, and those in stage IV 10.9 months. The overall clinical response rate of stages IIIC and IV combined was 69%. A complete decrease in ascites was found in 43% of all patients, a significant reduction in 19%. Toxicity and side effects were very mild and the bone marrow suppression was mostly grade I and never exceeded grade II. The primary clinical symptom in patients with post-therapeutic tumor necrosis, which occurred in 10-15% of all cases, was fever, fatigue and poor performance. The isolated hypoxic abdominal perfusion treatment is a potent instrument to break an existing chemoresistance without significant side effects with a good quality of life and comparatively long survival time.
Keywords: chemoresistance; hypoxic abdominal perfusion; intraarterial chemotherapy; isolated perfusion; ovarian cancer; platin-refractory tumors; quality of life; recurrent ovarian cancer.
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