PROPHYLACTIC USE OF CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENT ON LIVER METASTASIS

Abstract

Patients who underwent gastrectomy for stomach carcinoma received one-shot injection of Mitomycin-C into the hepatic artery at the time of surgery as a prophylactic adjuvant chemotherapy. Elevation of transaminases and alkaline phosphatase, and hepatic recurrence were likely to occur in these treated patients.
Confirmatory laboratory experiments showed that an increase of metastasis formation was the most pronounced when the rat was given Mitomycin-C into the hepatic artery before inoculation of Yoshida sarcoma cells. Histological examination showed that remarkable damage of liver cells was produced after administration of Mitomycin-C into the hepatic artery. The treatment of the rats bearing multiple small metastatic nodules with Mitomycin-C was effective when the drug was given either into the hepatic artery or into the portal vein.
These findings indicate that prophylactic use of anticancer agents through the hepatic artery might be meaningless and harmful but, if micrometastases are already present, it should be effective in preventing them from growing.