Rare treatment can prolong life of ovarian cancer sufferers

Jan 16, 2006, 2:17 GMT

New York - Women suffering from advanced ovarian cancer live up to 16 months longer if cancer treatments are pumped directly into the abdominal cavity, research published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows.

Pumping drugs directly into the abdominal cavity where ovarian tumours typically spread is not a new treatment but is rarely used, according to the researchers at John Hopkins University, according to the New York Times.

The study was conducted on 415 women in 40 U.S. hospitals.

Ovarian cancer patients who received cancer treatments directly into the stomach went on to live another 65.5 months on average, 15.8 months longer than those who received the drugs intravenously.

The researchers now urge the treatment to be made more widely available. A survival increase of more than a year was extraordinary for any type of cancer, Dr. Edward Trimble of the National Cancer Institute told the Times.

Ovarian cancer is less common than other cancers such as breast or prostate, but its survival rate is much lower. More than half of ovarian cancer sufferers die five years after diagnosis, compared to a survival rate of 88 per cent for breast cancer patients after five years.