[Experimental study on combination chemotherapy of UFT and calcium antagonist in gastric cancer]

The antitumor effect of combined use of UFT and verapamil, a calcium antagonist, was examined in gastric cancer transplanted to BALB/c athymic nude mice. Four experimental groups included Group I (Control) which was administered 3% Gummi Alabicum (p.o.), Group II (UFT) which was administered 64.8 mg/kg UFT (p.o.), Group III (UFT + verapamil) which was administered UFT and 10 mg/kg verapamil (s.c.) and Group IV (verapamil) which administered same doses of verapamil. All mice were sacrificed at the day of 12 and pathological and flow cytometric studies were performed to those tumors. At the day of 8, significant retardation of tumor growth was observed in Group II and Group III compared with Group I (P less than 0.05). The ratio of tumor retardation of Group III was more predominant than that of Group II at the day of 9 (p less than 0.05). However, no difference in pathological and flow cytometric changes was observed between Group II and Group III. Weight loss and death, as side effects, were found in Group II and III. It was assumed that this may be depend on the over dose of UFT or methods of administration. These results suggested that combination chemotherapy of UFT and verapamil was effective in the retardation of gastric cancer, however the doses of UFT and verapamil have to be reexamined in order to control the side effect.