[Clinical observations of hepatic artery infusion therapy combined with hepatic artery ligation in metastatic liver cancers].

Twenty-five patients with liver metastases from advanced gastrointestinal cancers were treated by hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy by insertion of a catheter into the hepatic artery. All patients also underwent ligation of the hepatic artery. The anticancer agents used were adriamycin 10-30 mg, mitomycin C 10-20 mg and 5-fluorouracil 250-500 mg. The effect was assessed according to the criteria for clinical evaluation of chemotherapy for solid cancers by Koyama and Saito. The response rate for partial response was 24.0% among all 25 patients, including 25.0% (2/8) for stomach cancer and 28.6% (4/14) for colorectal cancer. The survival time with palliative resection of the primary lesion was prolonged significantly (p less than 0.05) in comparison with no resection. As for the side effects of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, bone marrow suppression was most frequently found in 80.0% of patients, followed by gastrointestinal symptoms in 68.0%. In addition, fever occurred in 20.0%, stomatitis in 20.0%, liver dysfunction in 16.0% and alopecia in 4.0%. However, the side effects were all controllable. As to hepatic artery ligation, there was no serious complication except for one case of liver abscess.