A patient with gastric carcinoma improved remarkably on intraperitoneal OK-432 therapy

A patient with an abdominal tumor and gastric cancer was treated with intraperitoneal OK-432 alone. Her general condition improved and the abdominal mass diminished significantly. The fluoroscopic radiography and gastroduodenal fiberscopic examinations revealed a slight improvement. Four months after the initiation of OK-432 therapy, microscopic examination of the biopsy specimen disclosed degenerated tumor cells with a pronounced accumulation of lymphocytes and large monocytes which were ascertained to be macrophages by the fluorescent antibody technique using anti-macrophage serum. This study revealed one possible mechanism of the antitumor action of OK-432.