[An effective weekly paclitaxel administration for gastric cancer with malignant ascites--a case report]

A 71 year-old woman underwent total gastrectomy for advanced gastric cancer of p stage IV (pathological findings: por1 type 3 pT3, pN3 (12p: 1/1, 16b1 int: 3/3, 16b1 lat: 2/2), P1, CY1, H0) in March 2002. She was treated with the double modulation therapy of MTX/CDDP/5-FU intraperitoneally after the surgery. After leaving the hospital, she was carrying out the chemotherapy with MTX/5-FU continually. In August 2002, she became hospitalized once again because an appetite decrease and diarrhea appeared. CT of abdomen showed that malignant ascites had obviously accumulated, and she was admitted. Because it was conceivable in all cases of an inflammation by the chemical stimulation that originated in an anticancer drug, we suspended the intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Paclitaxel 90 mg/body administration was started intravenously on a weekly basis from the end of the same month. Those symptoms improved and she was discharged from the hospital, and was continued the paclitaxel administration. In CT of the abdomen that was taken in November in 2002, malignant ascites had obviously been decreasing and disappeared completely after that.