Intra-arterial chemotherapy: a safe treatment for elderly patients with locally advanced breast cancer.

Unlabelled: The feasibility, toxicity and local response rates of intra-arterial chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil, epirubicin and mitomycin in patients over 75 years with locally advanced breast cancer was evaluated.

Patients And Methods: Ten patients were treated by the transfemoral Seldinger technique, with the catheter tip placed into the internal mammary artery. In order to evaluate the vessels perfusing the tumor, blue dye solution was infused before drug administration.

Hepatic arterial chemotherapy with oxaliplatin, folinic acid and 5-fluorouracil in pre-treated patients with liver metastases from colorectal cancer.

Background: Hepatic arterial chemotherapy (HAC) is an effective treatment of liver metastases from colorectal cancer (CRC). Phase I and II studies have already shown the feasibility and efficacy of intra-arterial oxaliplatin (OXA).

Patients And Methods: Twenty-one pre-treated patients with liver metastases who received HAC with OXA/folinic acid (FA)/5-fluorouracil (5-FU) at our Division between March 2000 and November 2003, were clinically examined.

Molecular therapy: clinical applications. intra-arterial adenoviruses administration.

Gene therapy involves the introduction of foreign DNA into somatic cells to produce a therapeutic effect. The therapeutic gene is transferred into the tumor cells using a vector. Transfer may either be in vivo in which the DNA and vector are directly introduced into the body, or ex vivo, in which cells are removed from the body, transfected with DNA and then reintroduced into the patients.

Intra-arterial chemiotherapy for invasive bladder cancer.

Standard treatment for transitional cell carcinoma confined to the bladder is radical cystectomy that allow to obtain an overall 5-year disease-free survival rate only of 50-70%. It has been demonstrated that intra-arterial chemotherapy produces the same survival outcomes as radical cystectomy. This study aimed to evaluate the activity and toxicity of a bladder-sparing loco-regional treatment.

Immunotherapy with subcutaneous low dose interleukin-2 plus melatonin as salvage therapy of heavily chemotherapy-pretreated ovarian cancer.

Preliminary results showed that IL-2 immunotherapy may be effective in the treatment of recurring advanced ovarian cancer. The pineal neurohormone melatonin (MLT) has been proven to amplify IL-2 efficacy by counteracting macrophage-mediated immunosuppression. On this basis, a pilot phase II study of low-dose IL-2 plus MLT was performed in advanced ovarian cancer patients progressing after at least 3 previous polychemotherapeutic lines.