Cancers originating from organs in the peritoneal cavity (e.g., ovarian, pancreatic, colorectal, gastric and liver) account for approximately 250,000 new
cancer cases annually in the USA. Peritoneal
metastases are common owing to locoregional spread and distant
metastases of extraperitoneal
cancers. A logical treatment is intraperitoneal
therapy, as multiple studies have shown significant targeting advantage for this treatment, including significant survival benefits in stage III, surgically debulked
ovarian cancer patients. However, the clinical use of intraperitoneal
therapy has been limited, in part, by toxicity, owing to the use of
indwelling catheters or high drug exposure, by inadequate drug penetration into bulky
tumors (>1 cm) and by the lack of products specifically designed and approved for intraperitoneal treatments. This article provides an overview on the background of peritoneal
metastasis, clinical research on intraperitoneal
therapy, the pharmacokinetic basis of drug delivery in intraperitoneal
therapy and our development of drug-loaded
tumor-penetrating microparticles.