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Until recently, treatment options for patients with advanced abdominal
cancers could only provide relief from symptoms, with no hope of
stopping the disease from recurring or prolonging life.
Now, with the use of heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy using
the FDA-approved ThermoChem(TM) HT-1000 System, surgeons at Saint
Barnabas have the potential to dramatically improve the outlook
for late-stage patients with colon/rectal cancer, ovarian/uterine
cancer, cancer of the small bowel, and pseudomyxoma peritonei syndrome,
a rare malignant disorder.
The potent combination of heat, chemotherapy and specialized surgery
offers an extended outlook for patients with otherwise untreatable
abdominal cancers, most of whom have been given three to six months
to live. The specialized system reports response rates of up to
25 percent of patients achieving a greater than two year survival
rate.
This new technology allows surgeons to direct a heated sterile
solution throughout the entire abdomen, a treatment commonly referred
to as Intraperitoneal Hyperthermia (IPH) or Heated Chemotherapy.
ThermoChem(TM) is the first and only FDA approved device for IPH.
Surgeons use IPH in conjunction with a lengthy 8-10 hour surgery,
removing as many tumors as possible from the abdominal cavity.
Then, two small incisions are made and tubes are inserted, one
to pump the heated chemotherapy into the patient and the other
to circulate it back into the machine. The chemotherapy circulates
for approximately two hours.
Heat kills cancer cells at temperatures where normal cells remain
unharmed. Heating the chemotherapeutic agents makes them more effective
at killing cancer cells than they would be at normal temperatures.
Circulating the heated chemotherapy throughout the peritoneal and
abdominal cavity allows the drugs to be distributed thoroughly
and penetrate directly, without subjecting you to the side effects
of these drugs if given intravenously.
Because such surgery is a major procedure that is not without
risk and because the recovery can be substantial, Heated Chemotherapy
is not for everyone. To find out if you are a candidate, please
contact 973-322-5195 to make an appointment with a surgeon at Saint
Barnabas.
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