[Clinical evaluation of palliative chemotherapy with S-1 for oral cancer patients]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness and safety of palliative chemotherapy using S-1. We treated 19 advanced oral SCC patients including 8 men and 11 women with S-1. Of the 19 patients studied, two patients were classified as UICC Stage II, two patients as Stage III, 14 patients as Stage IV A, and one patient was classified as StageIV C. The ages varied from 54 to 9 1 years (mean ages; 78.3 years-old). The patients received this chemotherapy (80-120 mg/day) consisting of 2 weeks' administration including 5-days' administration and 2-days' termination (named 'Weekday-on/Weekend-off administration schedule' ) following 1 week rest. After this treatment, 7 CR and 4 PR were achieved, but the toxicities were only anorexia, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, and uritication of NCI-CTC grade 1. The prognosis of 19 cases was 7 terminal by primary disease, 3 terminal by other disease, 7 lives with tumor bearing, and 2 lives without tumor bearing. We concluded that our novel S-1 administration method was extremely effective for oral SCC, including lymph node metastasis, providing high potential without any severe adverse effects for palliative therapy.