Episode 252: Intraperitoneal Administration: The Oncology Nurse’s Role

“Before you even get started, you have to do your checks. Just like you do with a regular systemic infusion. You’re going to be doing your physical assessment prior to starting your patient, looking at your orders to make sure everything looks right, looking at the lab work,” ONS member Emoke Karonis, MSN, RN, CRNI, clinical nurse specialist fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY, said. “You have to be absolutely sure that day that patient is presenting to you in your suite, you’re definitely giving what is expected for that day.” Karonis was speaking to Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BC, AOCNS®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, about oncology nursing considerations for intraperitoneal chemotherapy administration. You can earn free NCPD contact hours after listening to this episode and completing the evaluation linked below.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0

Earn 0.75 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at myoutcomes.ons.org by March 24, 2025. The planners and faculty for this episode have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose. ONS is accredited as a provider of NCPD by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Learning outcome: The learner will report an increase in knowledge related to intraperitoneal therapy for cancer.

Episode Notes:

• Complete this evaluation to earn free NCPD.
• Oncology Nursing Podcast Episode 162: What Nurses Need to Know About Central Lines and Ports
• ONS Voice articles:
  • Nursing Considerations for Ovarian Cancer Survivorship Care
  • Ovarian Cancer: Prevention, Screening, Treatment, and Survivorship Recommendations
• ONS book: Access Device Standards of Practice for Oncology Nursing
• American Cancer Society: Chemotherapy for ovarian cancer
• American Society of Clinical Oncology guideline: Treatment of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
• Cancercare.org treatment update: Ovarian cancer
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Information on ovarian cancer
• National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases: Information on peritoneal dialysis
• European Society for Medical Oncology
• Infusion Nurses Society
• National Comprehensive Cancer Network

To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.

To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org.

Highlights From Today’s Episode

“Intraperitoneal (IP) therapy is basically the administration of an agent into that space where the abdominal organs float around via an implanted port or one of those direct intraabdominal catheters. . . Patients with cancer that have metastasized to the peritoneum, who have either had a debulking surgery and have very little disease left inside or small tumors to begin with, they can be considered for IP therapy.” Timestamp (TS) 02:02

“Hyperthermic IP chemotherapy is done in the operating room right after the surgeon has done all of their tumor removal. It is hyperthermic, meaning this stuff is hot, and it gets administered via a special circulating machine that heats up the chemotherapy and circulates it throughout the abdomen. . . . They are circulated for about 90 minutes–2 hours if they are at risk of overheating.” TS 07:39

“In the infusion suite, before you even get started, you have to do your checks. Just like you do with a regular systemic infusion. You’re going to be doing your physical assessment prior to starting your patient, looking at your orders to make sure everything looks right, looking at the lab work. . . If it’s the first time you’re seeing the patient, you want to check for catheter confirmation. It’s not going to be in a vessel, it’s going to be in the abdomen. You want to make sure that, especially if the person has more than one access device, you are looking for the correct confirmation.” TS 14:00

“It is necessary to repeat yourself because we’re giving patients so much information at the presurgical visit, while they’re going into the operating room, when they come out of the operating room, on their discharge, and then they’re going to go into the clinic for their post-op visit. There’s so much being thrown at these folks all the time that you do need to constantly reteach the same thing and to always be very neutral and accepting of that—that people might not retain everything you tell them the first time.” TS 22:00

“You can’t emphasize enough that if there’s one point where you need to slow down, take a breath, is during that independent double check. You have to be absolutely sure that day that patient is presenting to you in your suite, you’re definitely giving what is expected for that day. If they’re coming in multiple days, they could have a regimen that changes from day to day. . . . It’s so easy to get confused, and it’s very important to go back and see what has happened before that patient showed up at your suite, what’s expected to happen that day, and what’s going to happen the following day.” TS 31:16