Gastrointestinal Tumor
For a long time, peritoneal cancer was thought to be a very rare disease. This perception may still be true for specific subtypes of peritoneal cancer, such as malignant mesothelioma and pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP).
Gastrointestinal Tumor
For a long time, peritoneal cancer was thought to be a very rare disease. This perception may still be true for specific subtypes of peritoneal cancer, such as malignant mesothelioma and pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP). However, every year hundreds of thousands of patients around the world are diagnosed with peritoneal cancer originating from a primary tumor located elsewhere in the body, such as colon cancer, gastric cancer or ovarian cancer.
Rare subtypes
Malignant mesothelioma and pseudomyxoma peritonei are rare subtypes of peritoneal cancer, which affect approximately one to two people per one million people each year.
Common causes of peritoneal cancer
Peritoneal cancer from colon cancer is much more common: At least 10% of patients with colon cancer will develop peritoneal cancer at some point in their disease. For gastric cancer, this percentage is even higher, with estimates as high as 30% of the patients. Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of patients will develop peritoneal cancer each year as a result of a tumor elsewhere in the body.
6 weeks – 6 months Life expectancy
If left untreated, the median survival time for peritoneal cancer patients may be as short as six weeks for patients who have pancreatic cancer or six months for patients who have colon cancer. Survival time may be considerably longer when adequate treatment is provided.