[Chemotherapy for advanced and recurrent cancer patients--the effect of combination chemotherapy using cisplatin, peplomycin, mitomycin C, adriamycin, and 5-fluorouracil].

Abstract

According to the data obtained from the fundamental investigations using flow cytometry we designed the schedule of combination chemotherapy for solid cancer patients and we tried this therapy on 25 patients with non-curative, unresectable and recurrent cancers: 9 gastric, 5 colo-rectal, 3 esophageal, 3 pancreatic, 2 gall bladder, 2 lung and 1 breast cancer. The treatment was performed every 3 or 4 weeks as follows: CDDP 70 mg/m2 (d.i.), PEP 4 mg/m2 (i.v.) and MMC 4 mg/m2 (i.v.) on day 1, ADM 15 mg/m2 (i.v.) on day 4, and 5-Fu 250 mg/body (d.i.) every day. Among 22 patients evaluated completely, 1 complete response, 9 partial responses, 11 no changes, 1 progressive disease were obtained. The overall response rate was 45%. From the comparison of survival curves, survival rate was significantly better in patients responded to this therapy than in patients who did not respond to it (p less than 0.05). As for side effects, myelosuppression occurred in 19 patients (86%), increase of BUN and/or creatinine were observed in 3 patients (14%), increase of GOT and/or GPT were seen in 10 patients (45%), gastrointestinal symptoms and alopecia were observed in almost all patients, but all of these toxicity were transient and did not impede the continuous treatment.