Intraperitoneal chemotherapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer: a survey

Intraperitoneal chemotherapy preceded by cytoreductive surgery should be the standard of care in the treatment of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer. This combination has been extensively examined in both the clinical and preclinical settings with favourable oncologic outcomes. Unfortunately, despite the existence of these evidence-based data, this management strategy remains underutilised. We review and discuss the role of intraperitoneal chemotherapy with particular emphasis about the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics aspects, the mode of administration, the reported side effects, the compliance of the patients and the clinical ongoing studies. Further studies investigating the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics aspect of IP route may help to reduce toxicity pending more effective treatments.