Prolonged and Continuous Regional Arterial Infusion Chemotherapy in Patients With Melanoma

Abstract

The method of prolonged, regional, arterial infusion, cancer chemotherapy for advanced but regionally confined melanoma was tested. Of 33 patients receiving an adequate course of treatment, 29 were suitable for objective evaluation; of these, 17 (59%) had objective tumor responses varying from several months to six years. The results of this study have shown that regional arterial chemotherapy by prolonged infusion can produce objective responses with associated clinical benefit for a prolonged period in patients with malignant melanoma. Prolonged arterial infusion with antimetabolites takes advantage of recent kinetic data in regard to tumor-cell replication. Although this type of treatment has not been used as an adjuvant form of chemotherapy with surgery or x-irradiation, this should be investigated in view of the results.