SARASOTA COUNTY (WSNN) – Cancer patients on the Suncoast have a new way to potentially beat the disease. It’s called “hot” chemotherapy.
“I am now cancer-free again,” HIPEC Recipient, Patricia Shields said.
Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) targets cancers in the abdomen. SMH is the first hospital on the Suncoast to offer chemotherapy infusion during surgery.
“We bathe the intestines with chemotherapy at 42-degrees Celsius around 108-degrees Fahrenheit, we do that for 90 minutes,” Kenneth Meredith, MD said.
Dr. Meredith is the medical director of the gastrointestinal program at Sarasota Memorial’s Cancer Institute. He says it’s like boxing, HIPEC delivers a powerful one-two punch.
“We knock the tumor down with the surgery and then we knock it out with chemotherapy that’s heated,” Dr. Meredith said.
HIPEC is usually done on patients who don’t respond well to repeated rounds of chemotherapy. It treats cancers found in your appendix, ovaries, colon, and stomach. While it’s an invasive surgery that can take about 14 hours, it could save your life.
“Now you go from the few percent chances of living five years to 50 to 80/90 percent,” Dr. Meredith said.
“Like night and day,” Sheilds said. “When you’re doing chemo, you’re tired and there are certain conditions that seem to go with it. With the HIPEC, after that, you’re getting well, you’re getting better. And you don’t have to go get another treatment to slow you down.”
Shields fought colon cancer for about two years, and was one of the first patients to receive HIPEC in June.
“I’m very hopeful and I think things are going to be wonderful for me from now on,” Sheilds said.
“In the field that we’re in, we always want to instill hope and this gives us another way to give hope to our cancer patients,” Dr. Meredith said.
