[Clinical study on the effect of 24-hour continuous intravenous infusion of CDDP in far-advanced and recurrent carcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract].

This clinical study was undertaken in order to evaluate the effect of CDDP on 43 patients with far-advanced or recurrent carcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract. For all these patients, CDDP at 100 mg/m2 had been administered by continuous intravenous infusion for 24 hours and repeated one to seven times at an interval of 3 to 4 weeks. The effect of this therapy was assessed according to the criteria of clinical evaluation of chemotherapy for solid cancers by Koyama and Saito. The response rate for both complete and partial response was 27.9% among all 43 patients, including 47.1% (8/17) for gastric cancer, 33.3% (1/3) for esophageal cancer, 25.0% (1/4) for hepatocellular carcinoma, 25.0% (1/4) for carcinoma of the gallbladder or bile duct, 20.0% (1/5) for pancreatic cancer and none (0/10) for colorectal cancer. In particular, a good response rate of 37.5% (3/8) was obtained for patients with recurrent tumor and one of 33.3% (6/18) for those with palliative resection of the primary tumor, which was much higher that the rate of 17.6% (3/17) for those without resection. As for the side effects of CDDP therapy, gastrointestinal symptoms were most frequently found in 78.3% of patients followed by bone marrow suppression in 15.2%, and abnormalities of hepatic and renal function in 4.3% and 4.3%, respectively. Consequently, 24-hour continuous intravenous infusion of CDDP was considered to be effective for far-advanced or recurrent carcinoma, especially in cases of gastric cancer.