Old idea fights ovarian cancer
By Nathan Seppa
Delivering chemotherapy directly into the abdomen improves survival in women with advanced ovarian cancer, a new study shows.
Doctors randomly assigned 415 women with ovarian cancer that was spreading to nearby tissues to receive either standard chemotherapy intravenously or that therapy plus up to six courses, at 3-week intervals, of chemotherapy injected into the abdomen via a catheter. This approach is available for cancer treatment, but few doctors use it. The drugs used in the new study were cisplatin and paclitaxel (Taxol).