[Toxicity results of an adjuvant study with intraperitoneal chemotherapy in patients with stomach cancer. Current status and future prospects of intraperitoneal therapy].

The peritoneum is a frequent location of recurrent disease after surgical treatment of carcinoma of the stomach, colon, rectum or ovary. Usually this type of recurrence does not respond very well to systemic chemotherapy. The rational of intraperitoneal (ip) perfusion with cytotoxic drugs is based on a 2- to 3-log-fold increase in ip level over plasma concentration for certain chemotherapeutic agents. Hence, malignant cells in the peritoneal cavity can be exposed to very high concentrations of cytotoxic agents without serious systemic side effects. Remission rates of peritoneal carcinoma after ip perfusion of a range of chemotherapeutic substances varied from between 15 to 50%. Minimal information is available about adjuvant ip perfusion after operation for cure. Toxicity data are presented from our adjuvant trial using ip perfusion after operation for gastric carcinoma for cure with cisplatin in a randomized fashion. Altogether 59 perfusions were performed, with minimal systemic toxicity, no occurrence of peritonitis and only 1 portal infection. Immunological data show that 1 day after ip perfusion the concentration of natural killer cells is increased in 60% of all perfusions, but decreased only in 28%. We conclude that ip perfusion with cisplatin is a safe procedure with limited toxicity. The efficacy of this technique in peritoneal carcinosis is not yet proven in randomized trials. The observation period of our trial in the adjuvant stage after operation for gastric carcinoma is too short as get to assess the usefulness of the procedure.