[Chemotherapy of gastrointestinal cancer (author's transl)].

Gastrointestinal cancer has proved exceedingly resistant to chemotherapy efforts. 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) accepted as standard treatment, has provided only infrequent and incomplete antitumor effects. Other drugs as the nitrosoureas BCNU and CCNU or Mitomycin C do not match the effectiveness of 5-FU. Improvement in frequency of tumor regression have been recorded for gastric carcinoma with combinations of 5-FU and BCNU and 5-FU, adriamycin and Mitomycin C and for colorectal carcinoma with combination of 5-FU, methyl-CCNU and vincristine. There are also suggestions that such combination chemotherapy may produce increased survival when compared to untreated patients. The combination of 5-FU and streptozotocin in carcinoid tumors or adriamycin in primary hepatoma may be of some effectiveness.