Treatment of peritoneal mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Treatment of peritoneal mesothelioma, by J.S. Spratt (Archives of Surgery, 1989).

The study

• Author: J.S. Spratt
• Journal: Archives of Surgery
• Published: 1989;124(2):256
• Type of article: Letter
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item was a short letter to the editor, not a research study. The author responded to an earlier article by Plaus on managing peritoneal mesothelioma, calling that discussion good but incomplete. The letter reported no patients, data or asbestos exposure. The author wrote that these tumors vary widely in how aggressive they are, and that a physician risks adding to illness by overtreating. The author wrote that peritoneovenous shunts carry risk, noting that blockage of small lung blood vessels and clotting disorders had been reported with them. The author described copious washing of the abdominal cavity with 5% dextrose in water during surgery as essential when malignant fluid is present. The author also wrote that the lining tissue is sensitive to heat, and that the author's team used dextrose solution heated to 50 degrees Celsius for a three-minute wash before closing. The author recommended that chemotherapy given into the abdominal cavity be diluted to 2000 mL so it reaches the lining evenly. The author concluded that other approaches besides shunts may be useful.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter to the editor (commentary on an earlier article); no original study data
• Main results:
  • The author stated that these tumors vary widely in aggressiveness and that overtreatment risks adding to morbidity
  • The author stated that peritoneovenous shunts carry risk, and that pulmonary capillary occlusion and coagulopathies had been reported with them
  • The author described copious irrigation of the peritoneal cavity with 5% dextrose in water at laparotomy as essential when malignant ascites is present
  • The author stated that the mesothelium is sensitive to hyperthermia, and that the author's team used 5% dextrose in water heated to 50 degrees Celsius for a three-minute wash before closure
  • The author stated that each administration of intracavitary chemotherapy must be diluted to 2000 mL, preferably 5% dextrose in water, to give uniform exposure of the peritoneum
• The authors' conclusion: The author's view was that the earlier discussion of management was incomplete and that, with or without a peritoneovenous shunt, other approaches may be useful

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma, Peritoneal mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Peritoneal Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Treatment of primary peritoneal mesothelioma by continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion (CHPP) — B.J. Park, H.R. Alexander, et al. (1999)
• Treatment factors associated with long-term survival after cytoreductive surgery and regional chemotherapy for patients with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma — H.R. Alexander, D.L. Bartlett, et al. (2013)
• What made hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy an effective curative treatment for peritoneal surface malignancy: A 25-year experience with 1,125 procedures — G. Passot, D. Vaudoyer, et al. (2016)
• Diffuse malignant peritoneal mesothelioma--an update on treatment — P. Mirarabshahii, K. Pillai, et al. (2012)
• Peritoneal cancer treatment — Y. Yonemura, E. Canbay, et al. (2014)
• The role of cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy in the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis: a systematic review including evidence from Japan — T. Kitai (2021)

Browse more research in Archives of Surgery, or return to medical research.