Advances in surgery for peritoneal surface malignancies

Currently, patients with isolated peritoneal surface malignancies are treated with a combination of cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). This combination should now be considered the standard of care for appendiceal cancers (including pseudomyxoma), colorectal cancer and peritoneal mesothelioma, while patients with peritoneal metastases from ovarian or gastric cancer may be treated within clinical trials. At present, 8 clinical centres in Poland perform CRS and HIPEC. The unanswered problems of combined intraperitoneal therapy were an impulse for the organization of the 4^th International Conference “Advances in Surgical Oncology” that was held on November 23-24, 2017, in Lublin (Poland), and the Polish chapter of the Peritoneal Surface Oncology Group International (PSOGI) was established as a result of this meeting. This special issue of the Current Issues in Pharmacy and Medical Sciences is dedicated to the current therapeutic difficulties discussed during the two days of the conference – experiences that were exchanged to set in motion further directions for the improvement of intraperitoneal treatment.