Electrochemotherapy is a new antitumor treatment that delivers electrical pulses to the tumor site, several minutes after injection of antitumor chemical agents. In this study, oral fibrosarcoma was submucosally transplanted into the cheek pouch mucosa in 280 hamsters. When the tumor size was approximately 300mm
3, these hamsters were randomly divided into 4 groups, each group consisting of 20 hamsters. At this time, treatments were initiated. All groups were treated as follows
The animals of the D
-E
- group (control group) received no treatment. The animals of the D
-E
+ group received electric pulses without anticancer drug injection. The animals of the D
+E
- group received each six anticancer drugs : bleomycin (BLM), etoposide (LAS), cyclophoshamide (CPA), cisplatin (CDDP), doxorubicin (ADR) and 5FU, by injection only. The animals of the D
+E
+ group received electric pulses across the tumor for 30 minutes after an intraperitoneal injection of BLM, LAS, CPA, CDDP, ADR, and 5FU.
Electric pulse treatment together with each of BLM, LAS, CPA, and CDDP injection markedly reduced the tumor size. However, these anticancer drug injections alone, or electric pulse treatment alone, did not reduce the tumor size. These results clearly indicated that the antitumor effects of BLM, LAS, CPA, and CDDP on the lesion of hamster oral f ibrosarcoma could be considerably potentiated or enhanced by local electric pulses.
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