HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – An estimated 1.8 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, many facing the disease in an advanced stage.
That’s what happened to Eddie Thornton in the summer of 2019.
He had turned 50 that year and went in for a routine colonoscopy.
Thornton was stunned to hear that he had colon cancer.
“That took me for a loop. I called my fiancé and cried and screamed,” he said.
Adding to his anguish was hearing that the disease had spread to his abdominal lining.
“As a whole, the disease is called peritoneal surface malignancy which is a general term for several differ tumors that have the predisposition to spread to the lining of the abdominal cavity,” said Dr. Omar Llaguna, a surgical oncologist with Memorial Healthcare.
After evaluating Thorton’s case, Llaguna felt he would bea good candidate for surgery to remove the tumors along with a procedure called Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemoperfusion or HIPEC.
“We apply this heated chemotherapy at the time of surgery for about 90 minutes so it washes out and kills any cells that are left behind which in time could grow and cause trouble,” Llaguna said.
In the best outcomes, the HIPEC procedure can be a cure, but at the very least it can add years to the life of patients with cancer that has spread to the abdominal cavity.
“It can lengthen our time, no only lengthen but offer comfort,” Llaguna said.
And it gave Thornton the optimism he so greatly needed.
“I walked out there feeling like my old self, like there was something better than what I was going through. I believe there are better days coming,” he said.
Recovery time from the HIPEC procedure depends on how many tumors are found at the time of surgery.
Some of the most common cancers with a risk of spreading to the abdominal lining are primary tumors that start in the colon, ovaries, appendix and gastrointestinal tract.