[Evaluation of long-term administration of oral anti-cancer agent]

To evaluate the effectiveness of surgical adjuvant chemotherapy, we attempted to determine whether cancer patients were taking oral anticancer agents properly. Tegafur or UFT was administrated orally to patients with gastric or colorectal cancers after surgery for at least a year. There were 19 gastric cancer patients and 18 colorectal cancer patients. Serum levels of Tegafur and 5-FU were measured every three months. Results of the study showed that all the patients took medicine regularly according to the prescription and serum 5-FU levels of most patients (75%) exceeded the minimal effective serum level.