[Chemotherapy of Borrmann's type IV diffuse carcinoma of the stomach]

Because of the great difficulty in detection of early lesion of Borrmann type 4 diffuse (scirrhous) gastric cancer, diagnosis is frequently given to the patients with far advanced, widely spread cancer invasion in the stomach which is not infrequently associated with peritonitis carcinomatosa. Accordingly, cancer chemotherapy should be of great importance. We have designed UFTM chemotherapy (a combination of UFT and Mitomycin C) for gastric cancer on the basis of pharmacodynamics of UFT. Twenty-one patients with Borrmann type 4 gastric cancer were treated with UFTM therapy. Of 21 patients, 14 (66.7%) patients experienced clinical responses. Fifty percent survival time after initiation of therapy was 11 months for the responders and 5.7 months for the non-responders. Overall fifty percent survival time was 8.4 months. It is considered that one of the keypoints of chemotherapy for Borrmann type 4 gastric cancer will be the complete treatment of metastatic lesion in the peritoneum which will become lethal to the patients later. Further, discussion was widely made on the treatment of Borrmann type 4 diffuse (scirrhous) gastric cancer.