Dr. Suarez Mora On Sequential Sampling of IP Fluid During Chemotherapy

Adria Suarez Mora, MD, second-year fellow at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital, discusses how sequential sampling of intraperitoneal (IP) fluid during chemotherapy help better define the immunogenic effects of the treatment.

IP chemotherapy directly affects and provides access to the tumor microenvironment, says Suarez Mora, and biomarkers are detectable in IP fluid. In a recent study, Suarez Mora and colleagues hypothesized that through the sequential sampling of the IP fluid, treatment-induced changes in the tumor immune microenvironment could be better defined.

What makes the study so novel, explains Suarez Mora, is that they were able to get a better sample of the tumor microenvironment than they would through peripheral blood or tumor tissue. The goal of the study was to try and capture some of the changes happening in the microenvironment that were specific to immune function that rely on surrogate markers, such as peripheral blood or lymphocytes in the peripheral blood, she explains.

An IP catheter offers a unique way to sample the microenvironment to more effectively identify dynamic changes in immune function throughout chemotherapy. This information could not previously be obtained through a tumor biopsy or from peripheral blood.

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