Kh. Quan, ANALYSIS OF THE CLINICAL EFFECTIVENESS OF 144 CASES OF SOFT-TISSUE AND SUPERFICIAL MALIGNANT-TUMORS TREATED WITH ELECTROCHEMICAL THERAPY, The European journal of surgery, 1994, pp. 37-40
Electrochemical therapy (ECT) was used for the treatment of 144 cases
of soft tissue and superficial malignant tumours. All tumours were cyt
ologically verified and included 39 soft-tissue sarcomas, ten head-nec
k cancers, 21 malignant melanomas, seven skin cancers, three cervical
cancers, two breast cancers, 27 recurrent cancers and 35 metastatic ca
ncers. The TNM stage of primary cancers were: T-1: n = 28, T-2: n = 36
, T-3: n = 12, and T-4: n = 6. Among these, 23 cases were lymph nodes
metastases and 12 systemic metastases. There were 43 cases of localise
d recurrent cancer and 19 cases of generalised metastatic disease. ECT
was used to treat 128 cases once, nine cases twice, four cases three
times and three four times. All patients received systemic chemotherap
y for one to two cycles, and three of them were also treated by radiot
herapy. The short-term effectiveness rate was 86.87% (125/144) with 81
complete response (CR) (tumour disappeared completely), accounting fo
r 58.3% of all cases, 41 partial response (PR) (tumour regressed to mo
re than half of its original size) accounting for 28.5%. Fourteen (9.7
%) no change (NC); tumour regressed to less than half of its original
size) and five (4.5%) progressive disease (PD); tumour did not regress
or even increased in size). The short-term effectiveness rate in rela
tion to tumour size was 93.5% (120/127) for tumour diameters of <7 cm
and 29.4% (5/17) for tumour diameters >7 cm (p < 0.001). The long-term
effectiveness, that is the survival rates for 1, 2, 3 and 3 years, wa
s 83.3% (120/144), 74.1% (89/ 120), 84.3% (75/89) and 73.3% (55/75), r
espectively. The 4-year survival rate according to the TNM stage of pr
imary tumours was T-1: 82%, T-2: 44.1%, T-3: 15-38% and T-4: 0% (p < 0
.001). The 3-year survival rate of the localised recurrent cancers was
94.7% and for the generalised metastatic type 0%. For localised type
of metastatic cancer, the 3-year survival rate was 37.5%, but for the
generalised type, the 1-year survival rate was 0% (p < 0.001). In conc
lusion, our data indicate that the effectiveness of ECT was closely re
lated to TNM stage and to tumour size.