Multidisciplinary treatment with and without hyperthermia for ovarian carcinoma

Abstract

Background. We administered multidisciplinary treatment for ovarian carcinoma that included cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy with hyperthermia (mainly CDDP, adjuvant hyperthermochemotherapy) for 2 months after surgery. As deemed necessary, a second cytoreductive surgery was performed during the second-look operation. The maintenance chemotherapy consisted of hyperthermochemotherapy. However, the equipment to administer hyperthermia subsequently became inoperative and our multidisciplinary treatment continued without the hyperthermic component. Methods. This unexpected equipment failure enabled us to obtain cumulative survival rates on multidisciplinary treatment with and without hyperthermia. An analysis is hereby reported. Results.(1) Among all cases at stages Ic-IV, and, in particular, those at stages III and IV, the cumulative survival rates were higher among those receiving multidisciplinary treatment with hyperthermia (group A) than those treated without hyperthermia (group B). (2) Those high survival rates as observed in group A with the multidisciplinary treatment with hyperthermia were the result of the high CDDP concentrations in tumor made possible by hyperthermia. The completeness of our surgery was also high. Conclusion.The special characteristics of the multidisciplinary treatment in this report were the combination of hyperthermia and the total CDDP administration of 400 mg 2 months after surgery. Coupled with a high level of completeness of surgery, we believe that we were successful in making fully effective the application of chemotherapy and hyperthermia, thus improving the prognosis.