Tourniquet infusion chemotherapy for osseous malignant lesions

Two patients with osseous malignant lesions were treated with the tourniquet infusion method. The first patient, with two metastatic lesions in the left femur resulting from a renal adenocarcinoma, had three courses of intra-arterial Adriamycin. Biopsies of these lesions showed that the distal lesion, which was perfused during each treatment, was histologically negative, whereas the proximal lesion, which was not perfused because of the position of the catheter, contained the viable tumor. The second patient, a 12-year-old girl with osteogenic sarcoma of the proximal portion of the right tibia, had three courses of intra-arterial chemotherapy with Adriamycin and cisplatinum, and then underwent open biopsy, which was histologically negative. Another open biopsy six months later was also histologically negative. She has normal use of her extremity and, at eleven months since the initiation of treatment, she remains disease free. The evaluation of the tourniquet infusion technique in greater numbers of patients with bone tumors under carefully controlled conditions, appears warranted.