What diagnoses does HIPEC treat? (Anai Kothari, MD)

Anai Kothari, MD, surgical oncologist, explains how HIPEC treats cancer that has spread to the peritoneum — the lining of the abdominal cavity. Dr. Kothari is part of the Froedtert & MCW HIPEC team.

HIPEC is used in patients with advanced peritoneal disease or carcinomatosis. And that can be from several different causes of cancer and typically it's started in one place and has now spread to the peritoneal lining. Some of the most common things that it comes from is the appendix, the colon or the rectum, the ovaries or mesothelioma. There's a few other disease sites that actually can cause peritoneal involvement. Those are slightly more rare, but anytime we see a patient that has peritoneal involvement of the lining of their abdominal cavity with cancer, we think of HIPEC as one of the options for them.