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Men and women who have gynecologic cancer have brand-new expectation with a creative technology currently made available at the Seidman Cancer Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. A team of cancer specialists, led by Robert DeBernardo, MD, is among the first in the nation to launch a dedicated program using Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) to treat ovarian, endometrial and select other cancers.

Completed immediately following surgery, HIPEC provides heated chemotherapy through a ‘hot bath’ into the abdominal cavity, where it can penetrate diseased tissue directly. Once the physician takes out all the visible cancer as workable, a heated, a sterilized chemotherapy solution is circulated all through the mid-section through a technologically advanced perfusion procedure to kill the remaining cancer cells.

“This is a new and potentially revolutionary way of treating women with gynecologic cancers, which tend to be quite responsive to chemotherapy,” says Dr. DeBernardo, gynecologic oncologist at UH Case Medical Center and Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. “Our preliminary data and experience has been overwhelmingly positive and the therapy has been well-tolerated and effective. HIPEC promises to extend lives in a meaningful way.”

HIPEC has been used for years for public health care in patients with colon, pseudomyxomas, malignant mesothelioma and appendiceal cancer, cancers of which usually are not responsive to chemotherapy, but it’s currently looked at as an encouraging new treatment for gynecologic malignancy.

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