Delhi-based AIIMS doctors have developed a new technique to treat cancer patients, which proves to be more effective in stomach-related cancer. Chemotherapy medicines are usually inserted into the veins after surgery to eliminate cancer cells. Under this treatment, the chemotherapy medicines will be heated in the stomach during surgery. Through this new technique, doctors will now be able to enter a bigger dose of chemotherapy drugs to the patient’s body.
- This technology will increase the likelihood to help patients survive. This technique is called hyper therapy intraperitine chemotherapy (HIPEC), which has been used in Western countries for more than two decades now. But has recently been used for treatment of Colorectal cancer in India.
- Using this technique, the number of deaths during surgery has come down from 10 per cent to 2-3 per cent. Also, the use of this new technique has increased the possibility of avoiding over-voltage of patients by almost 30 to 40 percent. However, doctors emphasized that this technique cannot be used for all types of cancer patients. It can be used only for those cancer patients who are suffering from stomach cancer.
Also, HIPEC should be done only in a hospital or institute where the doctors using this technique are fully experienced and skilled because any kind of disturbances in drug dosage or temperature can cause death of the patient. AIIMS had also organized a workshop recently, through which proper training of HIPEC was given to the young surgeons.
Colorectal cancer is related to the stomach and is spreading rapidly in males. Apart from this, cancer of the uterus is also the third highest number of cancer among women. If doctors believe that HIPEC can work like a ray of hope in patients suffering from this kind of cancer.
