Peritonectomy at St George Hospital

The peritonectomy unit at St George Hospital developed around an established interest in major surgical oncology. In 1996 Paul Sugarbaker published results on a little over 200 patients with results in colorectal cancer and appendix tumours which had simply not been seen before.

Paul was very kind tome in helping learn this technique in Washington.  We continued doing lots of liver and other cancer surgery but Peritonectomy/HIPEC gradually over took us to the current status of 3 or 4 procedures per week.

Learning curve was and is a real issue in this highly technically demanding operation as well as the selection process and perioperative care.

The PSOGI organisation has been very important to the development of this procedure throughout the world.  We have been extremely fortunate with our hospital support to gain dedicated nursing, data base staff and have maintained a strong research group in both basic and clinical cancer areas through donations and grants.

We have also been strongly supported by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a continued fellowship training position resulting in the first and several other peritonectomy centres in the Kingdom.

At present we are very excited about the development of the latest drug (Bromelain and acetylcystene) from our cancer lab which is able to lyse tumour producing mucins but also has antitumour and chemosensitising actions.

Our clinical trials are progressing and we will start US and European Centres very soon.