In a news release emailed to the media Monday, Northside Hospital in Sandy Springs announced it performed the world’s first Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemoperfusion (HIPEC) surgery for ovarian cancer Dec. 27.

The treatment was done using minimally invasive robotic surgery and was performed by Dr. John McBroom, a gynecological oncologist.

More cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed and treated at Northside than at any other hospital in Georgia. Growth of this disease is most often relatively silent and, by the time of diagnosis, it usually has spread throughout the abdominal cavity. Until recently, treatment options for patients with advanced-stage ovarian cancer have only included surgery and conventional chemotherapy. However, with HIPEC and robotic surgery, surgeons can potentially improve their odds and reduce the morbidity associated with traditional open procedures.

Performed during surgery, HIPEC delivers heated chemotherapy into the abdominal cavity, which allows a much higher dose of chemo to permeate the diseased tissue than could be accomplished conventionally. The heat increases the effectiveness of the chemo. After the surgeon removes as much visible cancer as possible, the heated chemo is circulated throughout the abdomen, for up to 90 minutes, in an effort to kill the remaining cancer cells.

Intra-abdominal chemotherapy has been recommended by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as the standard of care for select patients with advanced-stage ovarian cancer. HIPEC has been associated with improved outcomes in other similar types of cancer , with fewer side effects than systemic chemo, and is being studied at several institutions as a potentially powerful weapon in the treatment of advanced-stage ovarian cancer.

Physicians at Northside have been performing HIPEC since 2008 and have performed more HIPEC procedures for ovarian cancer than any other hospital in the United States, 146 cases so far.

“We are very excited about the possibility of using both technologies to improve outcome and limit morbidity in our patients with advanced ovarian cancer,” McBroom said. “Ovarian cancer is typically not conducive to a laparoscopic procedure because the disease can hide and be hard to find. However, the improved dexterity and 3-D vision of robotic technology allows us to successfully complete more complicated procedures, in this case, find more of the disease to remove.”

Information: http://www.northside.com.