I'm sorry to read about your mum but pleased she is responding well to her chemotherapy treatment.
I'm afraid we cannot provide a medical opinion or say how anyone should be treated as we are not involved in your mum's clinical care. Only a specialist can do this. But I can say that surgery is seldom the recommended treatment for stage 4 cancer.
The issue in trying to remove a stage 4 cancer is that it has already spread somewhere else. So a patient would go through major surgery, with all the risks and recovery time involved, only for the cancer to be still in another part of their body. And in this situation, there would be little to gain in terms of overall survival from having had the surgery.
Chemotherapy tends to be the main treatment for peritoneal cancer because it is a treatment that can travel around the body. The hope is it can reach cancer cells wherever they are to slow the cancer down. Sometimes it can slow the cancer down for long periods of time.
I hope this is of use. Please get back to us if you need any more information or support. You may find it helpful to talk things through with one of the nurses on our helpline. The number to call is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and the lines are open from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.
