Morbidity and mortality of cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the leading cancer causes of death worldwide with high incidence of mortality. With limited available data from the previous literature, cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS-HIPEC) seems to provide substantial survival benefits to the advanced GC patients, especially in those with peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC). However, it is also considered as a high morbid approach. This review summarizes the current evidence regarding the perioperative safety of CRS-HIPEC in advanced GC patients. According to the currently available evidence, CRS-HIPEC causes surgery-related morbidity including abscess, fistula, and anastomotic leak, and chemotherapy-related morbidities such as leucopenia, anemia, thrombopenia, and heart, liver or renal toxicity. The incidence of the morbidity and mortality approximate 20% and 4.8% respectively, which are comparable to a major gastrointestinal surgery. Repeated evidence demonstrates that incidence of morbidity or mortality is significantly influenced by the institutional experience. Centers undertaking this treatment strategy must aim to minimize morbidity and mortality by learning from the experienced units and carefully selecting candidate patients. Patients with advanced age or greater disease burden seem to be at greater risks and thus application of CRS-HIPEC on them must be based on an extensive evaluation and multi-disciplinary team (MDT) discussion.