Advances in the management of peritoneal carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis is a frequent manifestation in the natural history of many gastrointestinal and gynecological cancers. The primary tumors will exfoliate many cancer cells, these cells will attach to the peritoneal surfaces and after developing their own blood supply in order to sustain their metabolic needs, they will become a peritoneal implant. In this book, we review some of the historical aspects of peritoneal carcinomatosis, describe the advances in understanding the biological behavior of the different types of cancers that can develop peritoneal carcinomatosis, and how these differences impact the mode of presentation, their radiological findings and their clinical outcome. We review the role of systemic therapy in patients with carcinomatosis secondary to colorectal cancer and explore the role of the combined modality of cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC in the management of epithelial ovarian cancer, a disease process that will have peritoneal dissemination in approximately 75% of patients at the time of diagnosis.