Prevention of neoplastic port site implants in laparoscopy: An experimental study

Enthusiasm about the application of videolaparoscopy to oncologic diseases has been limited by the growing number of port site implants. Adult Wister rats were submitted to 6-7 mm Hg carbonic gas pneumoperitoneum. Rats were r andomly divided into two groups: group I rats with tumor (200,000 viable ce lls of Walker tumor) and group IT rats with no tumor. The pneumoperitoneum was deflated after 30 min. Group I was further randomized into five groups: no treatment; or abdominal irrigation with saline, heparin, chemotherapy ( doxorubicin), or chemotherapy associated with heparin. After a period lasti ng no more than 18 days, the abdominal wall and intraperitoneal organs macr oscopically affected were studied histologically. Chemotherapy groups had n o port site implants and were significantly different (p < 0.05) than the n o treatment, saline, and heparin solution groups, which had incisional impl ants at frequencies of 100%, 85.7%, and 82.5%, respectively. Intraperitonea l irrigation with chemotherapy solution was effective in preventing incisio nal implants in this animal model.