[Intrathecal ACNU for the treatment of a meningeal gliomatosis model].

A nitrosourea derivative, ACNU (nimustine hydrochloride), is often used in the chemotherapy of brain tumors and shows considerable efficacy, since it crosses the blood-brain barrier (B.B.B.). This drug is also considered to be useful for intrathecal treatment of meningeal gliomatosis (MG) because of its short half-life in the blood or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and its strong cytotoxicity for glioma cells. In order to evaluate the efficacy of intrathecal therapy of MG with ACNU, MG models, which were produced by intracisternal inoculation of rat C6 glioma, were treated with intrathecal or intravenous administration of ACNU. When intrathecally administered 1 day or 3 days after tumor inoculation, ACNU (1 mg/kg) significantly prolonged the survival time of MG rats, where ILS was 35.7 to 42.9% and 24.1 to 25.0%, respectively. In MG rats which were treated intrathecally with ACNU (1 mg/kg) 5 days after tumor inoculation or intravenously with ACNU (15 mg/kg), ACNU failed to prolong survival time compared with the controls. It might therefore be suggested that intrathecal chemotherapy with a low dose of ACNU is effective in the early stages of MG, in which intravenous treatment with a high dose of ACNU is ineffective.