Beebe surgeon publishes article in journal
Ovarian cancer causes more deaths than any other type of female reproductive cancer, though it is not common. Only about half of women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer survive five years or longer.
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About the Docs
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Dr. James Spellman
Dr. James Spellman is board certified and an accomplished surgeon, researcher and author of professional articles in medical journals and books. He is one of only two fellowship-trained surgical oncologists in Delaware. Last year he received a three-year appointment as the Delaware state chairman of the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer Cancer Liaison Program. State chairmen are volunteer physicians who serve as representatives of the Commission on Cancer and provide leadership and support to the state commissions’ accredited cancer programs and the program’s Cancer Liaison physicians. Dr. Steven Berlin Dr. Steven Berlin oversees Beebe Medical Center’s Women’s Health Pavilion and Department of Integrative Health. He is the chairman of the Beebe Physician Network board of directors, chairman of the Investigational Review Board and serves on the Medical Executive Committee. Berlin also is a member of the Beebe Medical Center board of directors. He is a partner in Bayside Health Association Chtd. in Lewes. Berlin, together with obstetrician/gynecologists Dr. Vincent B. Killeen and Dr. Leo H. Eschbach, brought the laparoscopic hysterectomy procedure to Beebe Medical Center. This procedure and others are offering women an alternative to the traditional approaches to hysterectomies, and the physicians are expanding the minimally invasive surgery program at Beebe. |
Surgical oncologist Dr. James E. Spellman Jr., who is a member of the Beebe Medical Center staff and of the Tunnell Cancer Center team, is among those working to help women survive this cancer. He and Lewes gynecologist/obstetrician Dr. Steven D. Berlin, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Beebe, are among a small group of oncologists and gynecologists across the nation who perform a surgical procedure that, when used as an additional treatment to conventional treatments, already is showing some positive results.
The procedure is called hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy and entails rinsing the inside of the abdomen with a warm, chemotherapy liquid that attacks cancer cells left behind after the tumor has been removed. It can take up to 20 hours and is performed by two surgeons working together.
Spellman and Berlin perform the operation together at Beebe. Although in 2006 the National Cancer Institute encouraged all cancer centers to offer this treatment, this operation still remains mostly in the hands of university and research medical centers.
Spellman is one of 16 authors of an article that appeared in the January 2010 issue of the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer that reported on the effectiveness of the therapy. The article is titled “Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy in Ovarian Cancer.” The journal is the official journal of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society and the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology; it allows physicians and researchers around the world to share information.
Spellman and the other authors reported case statistics from their medical institutions that occurred between August 2005 and July 2008. There were 141 patients whose case information was included in a databank housed at the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville. Cyril William Helm, MB, BChir, an associate professor based at the university, was lead author of the article.
“We believe that hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy delays the time that it takes for cancer to reoccur, and we continue to promote it as a viable treatment,” said Spellman.
The article concludes that the treatment is showing promising results and warrants further study in clinical trials. Spellman and Berlin have performed the treatment on 30 Tunnell Cancer Center patients over the past seven years.
Spellman said the patients are living longer and going longer without a reoccurrence than if they would not have had the treatment. He attributed the treatment’s success at Beebe to the multidisciplinary team that has been instrumental in making sure the operations have run smoothly and all aspects of the patients’ care have been considered. Spellman highlighted the important role medical oncologist/hematologist Dr. Srihari Peri, medical director of the Tunnell Cancer Center, play in the treatments.
Spellman also cited staff members of Tunnell Cancer Center, Beebe’s Intensive Care Unit and its pharmacy and anesthesiology departments. Tunnell Cancer Center’s two research coordinators, Donna Miskin, RN, and Kari Souder, RN, OCN, were instrumental in extracting the patient information from Tunnell Cancer Center’s databank and getting it into the University of Louisville one.
Spellman performs the hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy on men and women who have been diagnosed with other cancers that have spread into the abdomen, such as advanced colon and appendiceal cancer. He performs these surgeries with other surgeons.
