HIPEC and PIPAC for gastric cancer: technique and comparison of efficacy. Literature review

Background: According to the World Health Organization (WHO) data, gastric cancer (GC) was the 5th most common cancer and the 4th leading cause of cancer death worldwide in 2020. Peritoneal metastases (PM) are associated with a poor prognosis and detected in 30 % of patients with locally advanced GC; the median overall survival in patients with PM is 3–6 months without any treatment and 6–12 months with the use of systemic chemotherapy. Delivery of appropriate chemotherapeutic drugs directly into the abdominal cavity increases the effectiveness of treatment without severe systemic side effects. Today, various forms of intra-abdominal chemotherapy of PM are used in the world. Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) and aerosol intraperitoneal pressure chemotherapy (PIPAC) in the treatment of GC PM. Purposes: To review current domestic and foreign publications on HIPEC and PIPAC, to compare their efficacy. Materials and methods: Articles in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science databases were studied and analyzed for the key queries: “stomach cancer”, “carcinomatosis”, “peritoneal metastases”, “HIPEC”, “PIPAC”. Conclusions: The best results were achieved when using PIPAC as preoperative chemotherapy, followed by cytoreductive surgery in combination with HIPEC. Both procedures are promising and require further study with multicenter randomized prospective trials to assess their therapeutic potential.