Article from Alternative Press can be found here.

Local physician Dr. Lawrence Harrison, a native of New Jersey, relocated to Berkeley Heights eight years ago for the "neighborhood feel, excellent school system" and proximity to his office.

"Berkeley Heights has a warm and relaxed atmosphere," says Dr. Harrison. "People are nice and family oriented. I live in Free Acres, which has diversity in people and homes. I love the fact that my kids can roam safely throughout Free Acres and everyone looks out for one another."

His "kids" are two sons, Ferris, age 10, and Woody, age 9. Both attended Mountain Park Elementary last year in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. Ferris, who graduated from Mountain Park, will continue on to Columbia Middle School in the fall.

Dr. Harrison's neighbors should be happy he came to town as well. His move was fortuitous for some local residents who had been diagnosed with aggressive cancer and needed a sliver of hope to get them to the next step: survival.

Dr. Harrison, chief of surgical oncology at University Hospital (University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey) in Newark, specializes in an innovative surgery called Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC). HIPEC is a unique method of delivering chemotherapy to patients and its use has extended the lifespan and improved the quality of patients who have been diagnosed with advanced cancer, such as gastro-intestinal malignancies and advanced tumors.

Although not new (the procedure has been done for almost 15 years), Dr. Harrison is one of few doctors who have such a vast amount of experience performing the surgery, and his success rate is quite good, he says. "I'm [even] getting patients from Manhattan," he says, noting that there are only a handful of doctors in the New York area that perform the procedure, and none with the amount of experience he has.

"I've [performed HIPEC] on more than fifty patients in the last five years," says Dr. Harrison.

HIPEC wasn't as widely accepted by patients because it was used for such a small subset of people, he says, but "studies have shown it is beneficial" in eradicating the disease.

The reason HIPEC is so successful is because heated chemotherapy can penetrate the tissues better and make cancer cells more reactive to its toxic properties. As an experienced surgeon, Dr. Harrison is able to direct the larger doses to the areas that need it most.

"The success rate, if we remove all the tumor[s], is quite good," says Dr. Harrison, who says the peritoneal cavity (the belly) can be a difficult area from which to remove tumors. "With HIPEC, chemotherapy has a better chance of [getting the cancer out]."

Dr. Harrison and his team are often the last hope for cancer patients who are in stages 3c and stage 4.