Can carboplatin replace cisplatin for intraperitoneal use?

Intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy is theoretically a feasible route for treating ovarian cancer. It is possible to expose tumor tissue disseminated peritoneal surface to extremely high concentration of anticancer agents. Three large-scale, randomized trials conducted in the US have demonstrated a significant improvement of progression survival and/or overall survival in IP chemotherapy arm over intravenous arm. Despite these favorable results, IP chemotherapy has not been accepted as standard care. One of the reasons for this is the use of cisplatin, which has been replaced by the less toxic platinum agent, carboplatin, when administered intravenously. In this review article, we discuss why IP chemotherapy using carboplatin has been ignored and its future potential.