[Clinical studies on induced hypertension chemotherapy based on functional characteristics of microcirculation of...

Selective increase in blood flow in tumor tissue by elevation of blood pressure induced with angiotensin II was observed, but no increase was noted in normal but tissue in rat. This result was found to be the cause of the lack of autoregulation of blood flow system in tumor tissue. This finding was clinically applied to cancer chemotherapy for enhancing drug delivery to tumor tissue selectively. Since 1978, clinical trials on induced hypertension chemotherapy (IHC) have been performed in 102 cases with various advanced cancers based on the results of animal experiments. A three-drug regimen with adriamycin, 5-FU and mitomycin C or adriamycin, vincristine and carboquone was mainly used in this study. Among 84 cases acceptable for evaluation, the treatment was evaluated as CR in 8 cases and PR in 33 cases. The overall response rate was 48.6%, and the response rate for carcinoma of the stomach was 50.0% (9/18). In the randomized controlled study, a marked enhancement of the clinical response rate for stomach cancer was observed as follows; 42.9% for IHC and 10.5% for the controls. Furthermore, the clinical response to IHC could dated earlier by this method. in earlier period after the onset of the treatment. From these results, it was concluded that IHC provides a new approach to cancer chemotherapy in method of its increase in drug delivery to tumor tissues selectively.