1988 Volume 79 Issue 11 Pages 1782-1789
Forty patients with prostatic carcinoma subjected to transcatheter arterial infusion of microencapsulated anticancer drugs (microchemoembolization) were analyzed with a median follow-up period of 77 months (range, 4-118). Four patients had stage B2 disease, 10 stage C and 26 stage D2; 19 were resistant to prior hormone therapy.
Three microencapsulated drugs (mitomycin C, peplomycin and cisplatin) were employed as a single agent in 33 patients and in combination in 7; mitomycin C was used in 29. Twenty-five patients received a single infusion and the others 2 or 3 infusions. Twenty-three patients underwent subsequent therapy within 3 months irrespective of the therapeutic responses, but 17 were followed without other therapy because of the benefit from chemoembolization in 11 and because of their far advanced disease in 6.
Objective tumor response (CR+PR) was found in 14 (54%) of the 26 evaluable tumors. Improvement of symptoms and signs such as dysuria, pain, hematuria, hydronephrosis and elevated serum acid phosphatase was experienced in 31 (94%) of 33 patients, lasting for one year in 9 (75%) of 12. Severe pain from bone metastasis was well controlled in 2 patients. Accountable side effects such as myelosuppression, pain and skin ulcer occurred in 13 (30%) patients, but these were reversible in all patients except for one suffering from renal insufficiency.
Follow-up results indicated that this mode of therapy would be an effective measure for improving intractable symptoms, for controlling the primary tumor in stage D patients with inactive metastasis as well as in inoperable stages A-C patients, and for reducing postoperative recurrence.
