Background/aims: The prognosis for gastric and esophageal cancer patients with liver metastases remains very poor. In most cases, liver metastasis is unresectable because of its number, size and location and therefore, other approaches need to be considered.
Methodology: In this study we examined 4 patients. We showed the therapeutic benefits of employing hepatic arterial infusion of low-dose CDDP and 5-FU combined with hyperthermia for the treatment of liver metastases of gastric and esophageal cancer.
Results: All patients showed partial response, and bone marrow toxicities and gastrointestinal toxicities were extremely slight while liver toxicities were not observed at all. Moreover, 3 of the patients excluding patient 3 who had metastatic lesions other than liver metastases have still been alive for more than 17 months (17-28 months) maintaining a good quality of life.
Conclusions: Therefore, it is suggested that the merits of both low dose-FP and hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy contribute to ideal clinical effects, and that hyperthermotherapy could enhance clinical responses without potentiating any toxicities. However, this is just a preliminary study, and therefore, a prospective randomized control study is necessary to evaluate the efficiency of this therapy.