[The study of continuous local arterial-infusion chemotherapy with 5-FU + CDDP for patients with severely advanced HCC--for the elongation of the life-span and the improvement of QOL].

We tried continuous local arterial-infusion chemotherapy using 5-FU + CDDP with an implanted reservoir, for patients with severely advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), who had no indications for operation, PEIT or TAE. Arterial-infusion was continued for one week, followed by a one-week no-infusion period, and this treatment was repeated 1-32 times, and patients were observed for 36-549 days. Until the end of April 1993, the one-year survival rate was 61.1%. There were 3 partial remission (PR) cases, 3 progressive disease (PD) cases and the other cases showed no change (NC). Only one patient had any side effects, and all could continue as outpatients for 94.0% of the entire therapy. The patients' evaluation of QOL revealed no differences of QOL according to the length of the whole therapy, the history of rehospitalization during therapy, response to therapy, etc. But PR cases tended to show improved QOL. Therefore we considered this as effective therapy for the elongation of the life-span and the improvement of QOL.