[Regional immunochemotherapy for liver metastasis of esophageal cancer in a patient with variant hepatic artery].

A patient with metastatic liver tumor from esophageal cancer having an anomaly of the hepatic artery was treated by regional immunochemotherapy using two infuserports, which were implanted transfemoral to the right and the left hepatic artery, respectively. The schedule of this therapy was as follows: CDDP (30 mg/m2) on day 1 and 8, 5-FU (1,000 mg/m2) on day 1, 2, 8, 9, 15 and 22, and OK-432 (1 KE/body) on day 3-6, 10-13 and 16-20 were administered via the hepatic artery; and OK-432 (5 KE/body) was also injected intramuscularly three times a week. After the first course of this therapy was performed via the left hepatic artery, metastatic foci in the left lobe regressed, while those in the right lobe progressed markedly. Thereafter, the second course was performed via the right hepatic artery, and then the third course was via both right and left hepatic artery. Following these trials, metastatic foci of the right and the left lobes showed remarkable regression. These results suggest that the effect of immunochemotherapy is closely related with the local concentration of anti-cancer agents.