[Local treatment of locally recurrent breast cancers]

For the treatment of recurrent breast cancer, surgical treatment of the local lesion is only of limited significance, leaving a major role for systemic treatment such as chemotherapy and endocrine therapy. Therefore, a new method of local treatment other than surgical removal alone, or systemic treatment of these locally recurrent breast cancers is required. For the treatment of locally recurrent breast cancer, intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy was performed through both the internal mammary artery and subclavian artery or individually. Fourteen cases of locally recurrent breast cancer in our hospital were treated with this therapy. Continuous infusion of 5-fluorouracil and intermittent injections of mitomycin, adriamycin or 4'-epi-adriamycin were jointly or individually done into each artery. Regression of the locally recurrent mass was periodically measured from 4 to 6 weeks after infusion. The percentage of patients with PR was 35.7%. Intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy is a useful preliminary procedure for systemic treatment of local lymph node recurrence from breast cancer. A treatment involving local infusion of the non-specific immuno-activators, OK-432 and PSK, has also been performed for local recurrent lesions of breast cancers. We injected OK-432 and 5% PSK solution into patients with locally recurrent breast cancers and studied their suppressive effect on tumor proliferation. Macroscopically, PR was noted in 3 of 12 patients given OK-432. CR+PR were obtained in 9 of 12 patients given PSK. These results suggest that local injection of OK-432 and PSK solution is beneficial in the management of nodular or scattered-type locally recurrent tumors except for infiltrating type.