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Jennifer Matthews: Frank Hale feared the sun might be setting on his life after he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer.
Frank Hale: I was scared to death. I mean, I was terrified.
Jennifer Matthews: But he was also lucky. Doctors found his cancer during a routine hernia operation.
Frank Hale: I mean it could have been years before it was found, before I actually had symptoms, and by that point in time, it might have been too late.
Jennifer Matthews: Still, Frank needed aggressive treatment. Doctors tried a new approach called Intraperitoneal Hyperthermic Chemotherapy, or IPHC. First, doctors remove all the visible cancer. Then, right after surgery, they fill the abdominal cavity with a heated chemotherapy solution.
Dr. Perry Shen: The level of the drug that you achieve at the surface of the abdominal cavity is much higher than you can get when you give it systemically.
Jennifer Matthews: And doctors say heating the drug boosts its cancer-killing effect. Researchers from Wake Forest University showed IPHC increased patients' average survival to about 16 months. They say nearly 20 percent are surviving at least 5 years.
Dr. Perry Shen: When you look at the natural history of being 3 to 6 months for this disease process, it's a significant increase.
Jennifer Matthews: Six weeks after the treatment, follow-up tests showed Frank was cancer-free.
Frank Hale: I literally broke down in tears. It was such great news.
Jennifer Matthews: His doctor says there's as much as an 80 percent chance that Frank's cancer won't ever return. Frank says he'll take those odds. This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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