Cisplatin and doxorubicin are chemotherapy agents that show responses in patients with sarcoma. It is also well established that using heated cisplatin and doxorubicin will markedly increase the cytotoxicity of these agents. Heat alone also has anti-cancer activity. The more limited the blood supply of the malignancy being treated, the greater the thermal cancer destruction that is expected from heat alone. Also, heat increases chemotherapy penetration into tissues.
Heat decreases drug resistance to chemotherapy of cancerous tissue.
Heat and chemotherapy are considered to have synergistic rather than merely additive effects. One form of surgically directed chemotherapy is heated intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Extensive experience with heated cisplatin and doxorubicin has been accumulated at the Washington Hospital Center in prior phase II studies. Complications seemed to be related to the extent of surgery rather than the intraoperative chemotherapy. The well-defined risk of cytoreductive surgery and heated intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy was considered reasonable for application in an adjuvant setting.