An innovative and complex procedure has allowed a woman suffering from advanced ovarian cancer to undergo radical treatment and achieve a significant reduction in the risk of recurrence.
This is the story of Claudia (a pseudonym to protect privacy) who was admitted to the Federico II University Hospital in Naples with a diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer. The patient, following a long clinical study by the multidisciplinary gynecological oncology group coordinated by Professor Carmine De Angelis, and after appropriate medical treatment, was deemed suitable to undergo an innovative cytoreduction procedure associated with intraperitoneal hyperthermia chemotherapy. But let's see what it is about.
"Simplifying - explains Professor Giuseppe Bifulco, director of the Uoc of gynecology and obstetrics of the Federico II - we can affirm that this procedure, together with radical surgical intervention, is one of the most innovative therapeutic pathways in the treatment of ovarian cancer. During the procedure, in fact, the patient was treated with the use of chemotherapeutic drugs intraperitoneally, meaning that the cancer cells came into direct contact with the cytotoxic agent and in this way it is possible to minimize the risk of recurrence".
The long and complex intervention (a good 6 hours in the operating room) was successfully performed at the Dai maternal and child, saw the collaboration between the team of gynecological oncological surgery of Professor Bifulco and that of colorectal surgery coordinated by Professor Gaetano Luglio (Dai of general surgery, transplants and gastroenterology, directed by prof. Giovanni De Palma). The intervention ended with a course without complications, the patient was discharged in excellent general clinical conditions.
"These innovative surgical procedures are the result of collaboration between the various operating units - explains the general director Giuseppe Longo - but above all they are possible thanks to the very close link that has always linked the care component to that of university research. A combination that allows our company to promote surgical innovation and cutting-edge treatments for the management of advanced oncological diseases".