Gastrectomy, peritonectomy, and perioperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy: the evolution of treatment strategies for advanced gastric cancer

Gastric cancer disseminates by hematogenous, lymphatic, and transcoelomic routes. For maximal containment of the malignant process, perioperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy is necessary in two groups of patients in whom the primary cancer can be resected. Those patients who have been resected for cure and have a high likelihood of microscopic residual disease require intraperitoneal chemotherapy. This includes all T3 and T4 patients, and patients with N2 nodes present. A series of randomized and nonrandomized clinical studies have established the benefits of perioperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy in this group of patients. Patients with stage IV disease who are able to undergo a palliative resection require these treatments if peritoneal seeding is observed. Systemic chemotherapy is largely ineffective for peritoneal seeding, while intraperitoneal chemotherapy is most likely to produce a response with small volume, surgically debulked carcinomatosis. In addition, intraperitoneal chemotherapy can eliminate the future development of debilitating ascites. Sufficient data are available from the gastric cancer literature to support the use of these combined treatments on a routine basis if the primary cancer is resectable and gastrointestinal function can be reestablished.