Liver and tumor uptake and plasma pharmacokinetic of arterial cisplatin administered with and without starch microspheres in patients with liver metastases

Article Abstract:

Chemotherapy is invariably limited by the toxicity of chemotherapeutic agents to healthy tissues. Much research into new methods of chemotherapy focuses on reducing these side effects, to make higher and more effective doses of chemotherapy possible. One method of escalating the chemotherapeutic attack on a localized cancer is by direct injection of the chemotherapeutic drugs into an artery leading to the affected area. This way the cancerous region is exposed first to the blood containing the toxic drug and, hopefully, will experience the maximum effects. However, some cancers have reduced blood flow within them. In these cases, much of the drug-containing blood will travel through healthy tissue rather than cancerous tissue. In the case of liver cancer, considerable research is focussing on chemoembolization. In this technique, some foreign material is injected into an hepatic artery along with the chemotherapeutic agent. This material blocks the fastest-flowing arteries, a phenomenon having two effects. The rate of blood flow through the liver is reduced, giving liver cells, including cancer cells, more time to absorb the drug. Furthermore, the increase in arterial pressure results in greater blood flow through the tumor, directing more of the chemotherapeutic drug to the area that needs it. A study was conducted to compare the effects of cisplatin chemotherapy on metastatic liver cancer with the effects of cisplatin combined with starch microspheres. These tiny starch spheres can block smaller arteries. They are also degradable and the body's own enzymes will clear the arterial blockade in time. In a study of eight patients, the circulating cisplatin was found to be lower in patients who received both drug and microspheres in an hepatic artery than those who received drug alone. This indicates that a greater fraction of the cytotoxic drug had been removed from the circulation within the liver when the drug was administered with starch microspheres. Tumor biopsies performed 15 minutes after the drug administration revealed higher concentrations of cisplatin in the cancer of the patients injected with the microspheres. These high levels of drug concentration were found even in the tumor masses with low levels of blood flow prior to the microsphere injection. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Health aspects, Dosage and administration, Chemotherapy, Liver cancer, Cisplatin, Microspheres

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Clinically isolated mandibular relapse in childhood acute leukemia

Article Abstract:

Acute leukemia is a blood cancer that is characterized by the unrestrained growth of leukocytes (white blood cells) and their precursors in tissues. Effective treatment of this cancer may decrease the frequency of relapse, but may also change the pattern of relapse. Studies have shown that, although the cancer is eliminated from the blood, patients with leukemia may still have evidence of cancer at other body sites, such as the genital organs and the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Two cases are described of children with acute leukemia who developed mandibular relapse, or recurrence of cancer in the lower jaw, despite hematologic remission or elimination of the cancer from the blood. One child with acute lymphoid leukemia had not required anticancer therapy for 2.5 years. The second child represents the first case with promyeloid morphologic features in which mandibular relapse developed. Both children achieved a second complete remission and did not require further treatment after radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Mandibular relapse in childhood leukemia is usually delayed until after the cessation of treatment, but may be managed by radiation treatment and chemotherapy, which can produce long remissions and may cure the cancer. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Complications and side effects, Development and progression, Metastasis, Cancer metastasis, Mouth cancer, Childhood leukemia, Leukemia in children

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