Perceived gluttony. Likely death. Unlimited hope.

They've all passed through Mark McMahon's life in just three months, as what he once considered a "beer belly" turned into a bout with cancer.

But the disease has left his life just as quickly as it entered it, thanks to an Omaha doctor and a cutting-edge technique called heated chemotherapy perfusion. The procedure helps to extend the survival rates of patients with a variety of abdominal cancers.

The cancer can cause peritoneal carcinomatosis, a condition in which cancerous tumors in the appendix, stomach and colon spread to the lining surface of the abdomen.

The treatment combines surgery with the application of heated chemotherapy drugs directly into the abdominal cavity. The heat makes the chemotherapy drug more effective in penetrating and killing off cancer cells.

Dr. Brian Loggie, chief of surgical oncology at Creighton University Medical Center and director of its Cancer Center, is one of a handful of doctors nationwide who perform the procedure. He came to Creighton about a year ago and has done about 35 heated chemotherapy techniques since January.

Frustrated over a lack of treatment options, Loggie developed the technique more than a decade ago while working at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. At the time, Loggie was treating a mother in her mid-30s with stomach cancer. The woman was given treatment that appeared to be working, but the tumor later spread to the surface of her abdomen lining.

"I had certainly seen that scenario before," Loggie said. "I felt that it was ridiculous that we didn't have more to offer."

Other leaders in the field were developing similar techniques around the time Loggie and his team conducted their initial study on the procedure in 1991.

Without treatment, patients with the condition live about three to six months. Surgery alone has proven to be ineffective, as have several other treatments.

Dr. Perry Shen, assistant professor of surgery at Wake Forest, said that while heated chemotherapy isn't accepted in all medical circles, he sees it as another option for patients suffering from a potentially fatal abdominal cancer when traditional treatments don't work.

Before the technique, Loggie surgically removes all visible cancerous growths. During the technique - dubbed "shake and bake" by some of Loggie's residents - the chemotherapy drug is heated to about 107 degrees, circulated throughout the abdominal cavity for two hours, then drained out.

It may eliminate additional recurrence of cancer altogether, Loggie said. That's what Mark McMahon is counting on.

It turned out that his protruding stomach wasn't the result of drinking too much beer. It had filled with a gallon of jellylike goo created by the cancer. Doctors discovered the fluid when McMahon had a hernia operation for his belly button.

The Carmel, Calif., man was diagnosed in April with a rare abdominal cancer called pseudomyxoma peritonei. The 40-year-old was shaken by the diagnosis.

After researching several doctors in the country, McMahon and his wife, Libby, narrowed it down to four doctors. Two didn't work out.

It was the personable and organized nature of Loggie and his staff that led them to Omaha.

McMahon said when he initially met with Loggie, he had a list of questions six pages long. After the fifth page, McMahon asked the doctor if there were any common traits among patients who survived the cancer.

"They ask me a lot of questions," McMahon recalls Loggie saying.

Loggie performed the heated chemotherapy perfusion on McMahon last month. The McMahons told their 3-year-old son they had to get the jelly out of "daddy's belly."

McMahon lost 30 pounds. He was lucky - the doctor had to take out only his appendix, spleen and a small portion of the tail of the pancreas.

McMahon, who turns 41 today, is a product manager for a high-tech company and hopes to return to work in August.

Now all McMahon has left of his ordeal is a little rib and back soreness, a bit of tingling in his left hand and a scar that runs below his breast bone to above his pelvic bone.

Loggie is careful not to say that he has cured McMahon. His future is uncertain, but things look good.

"I'm very optimistic about his long-term outcome," Loggie said.