Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2017; 23(3): 377-381
Published online Jan 21, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i3.377
Second-look surgery plus hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy for patients with colorectal cancer at high risk of peritoneal carcinomatosis: Does it really save lives?
Delia Cortes-Guiral, Dominique Elias, Pedro Antonio Cascales-Campos, Alfredo Badía Yébenes, Ismael Guijo Castellano, Ana Isabel León Carbonero, José Ignacio Martín Valadés, Jesus Garcia-Foncillas, Damian Garcia-Olmo
Delia Cortes-Guiral, Alfredo Badía Yébenes, Ismael Guijo Castellano, Damian Garcia-Olmo, Department of General Surgery (Peritoneal Surface Surgical Oncolongy), Fundación Jiménez Díaz Hospital, 28050 Madrid, Spain
Dominique Elias, Department of Surgical Oncology, Institut Gustave Roussy, 94805 Villejuif, Cédex, France
Pedro Antonio Cascales-Campos, Department of General Surgery (Peritoneal Surface Surgical Oncolongy), Virgen de la Arrixaca, 30120 Murcia, Spain.
Ana Isabel León Carbonero, José Ignacio Martín Valadés, Jesus Garcia-Foncillas, Department of Medical Oncology, Fundación Jiménez Díaz Hospital, 28050 Madrid, Spain
Author contributions: Cortes-Guiral D wrote this paper; Elias D, Cascales-Campos PA, Badía Yébenes A, Guijo Castellano I, León Carbonero AI, Martín Valadés JI, Garcia-Foncillas J and Garcia-Olmo D reviewed this article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Cortes-Guiral D declares no conflict of interest in relation to this publication.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Delia Cortes-Guiral, MD, Department of General Surgery (Peritoneal Surface Surgical Oncology), Fundación Jiménez Díaz Hospital, Avda. Reyes Católicos 2, 28050 Madrid, Spain. delia.cortes.guiral@gmail.com
Telephone: +34-651-924994
Received: August 27, 2016
Peer-review started: August 28, 2016
First decision: October 20, 2016
Revised: November 2, 2016
Accepted: November 15, 2016
Article in press: November 16, 2016
Published online: January 21, 2017
Processing time: 139 Days and 10.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Metachronous peritoneal carcinomatosis of colorectal origin is so predictable that at-risk patients can be clearly identified. Treating peritoneal carcinomatosis in its early stages, when the peritoneal carcinomatosis index is as low as possible, is vitally important to get the maximum benefit from cytoreductive surgery plus hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). Second-look surgery with HIPEC or prophylactic HIPEC at the time of the first intervention have been proposed as means of preventing and/or anticipating clinical or radiological relapse in at-risk patients. Both techniques have shown a significant decrease in peritoneal relapses and should be considered essential weapons in the management of colorectal cancer.