Anal submucosal injection: a new route for drug administration in pelvic malignancies. II. Methotrexate anal injection in the treatment of advanced bladder cancer. Preliminary study.

The clinical efficacy of submucosal anal injections of methotrexate in advanced bladder cancer is investigated. An experimental study on 20 mice has shown that methotrexate injected into the anal submucosa has no clinicopathological effect on the anorectum. The clinical study comprised 18 patients with advanced bladder cancer (13 with stage T3 and 5 with stage T4 disease) as a test group in whom methotrexate was injected into the anal submucosa and 8 (6 with stage T3 and 2 with stage T4 cancer) treated concurrently with intravenous methotrexate.