Point: Intraperitoneal chemotherapy in the management of ovarian cancer

Both preclinical considerations and results of phase I safety and pharmacokinetic studies provided support for the argument that intraperitoneal antineoplastic drug delivery should be a rational approach to the management of ovarian cancer. Subsequently conducted phase II trials exploring regional treatment revealed surgically documented objective responses when the approach was employed as a second-line therapy. Recently, the results of three randomized phase III trials have shown that the use of primary cisplatin-based intraperitoneal therapy leads to superior survival compared with intravenous cisplatin-based treatment in patients with small-volume residual advanced ovarian cancer after initial surgical cytoreduction. Further exploration of this unique management strategy is indicated to develop an optimal approach that maintains the demonstrated enhanced efficacy while reducing the toxicity (principally because of cisplatin) of treatment.