Initial experience from a combination of systemic and regional chemotherapy in the treatment of patients with nonresectable cholangiocellular carcinoma in the liver

Table 1 Patient characteristics, maximum toxicity, maximum response, adverse events, and arterial hypovascularisation under therapy.

Patient number	Age (yr)	Gender	Maximum number of gemcitabine cycles	Maximum number of chemo- occlusion cycles	Maximum response	Neutro- penia acc. To WHO	Thrombo- penia acc. To WHO	Anemia acc. To WHO	Choles- tasis acc. To WHO	Nausea acc. To WHO	Flush symptoms acc. To WHO	Tumor- related disease	Clinical therapy related benefit	Progressive arterial hypovascu- larization
1	60	M	5	2	SD	2	2	2	2	2	1	yes	-	-
2	71	F	4	1	SD	2	2	1	2	2	1	yes	-	-
3	67	F	11	3	PR	1	1	1	2	0	1	-	-	yes
4	47	F	7	3 (+11)	PR	1	0	1	1	2	2	yes	-	yes
5	63	F	9	2 (+11)	PR	0	0	1	2	1	1	yes	yes	yes
6	76	F	6	2 (+11)	SD	0	0	0	0	1	1	yes	yes	yes
7	53	F	9	2	SD	0	1	1	2	2	2	yes	yes	-
8	56	M	4	1	SD	0	0	2	2	1	2	yes	-	-

¹Single chemoperfusion without DSM because of early vascular stasis due to progressive arterial hypovascularization.

Table 2 Present status, chemotherapy-related response and changes of tumor markers.

Patient number	Observervation period (mo)	Maximum response	Highest tumor markers before	Lowest tumor marker under therapy (%)	Time to tumor progression (mo)	Survival therapy (mo)
1	10	SD	None	-	7	Dead (10)
2	14	SD	Ca15-3:48	47 (-21)	5	Alive
3	18	PR	Ca19-9:1 442	34 (-981)	18	Alive
4	12	PR	Ca19-9:89	19 (-771)	NA (still PR)	Alive
			AFP:35	6 (-831)
5	10	PR	Ca19-9:786	139 (-821)	NA resected after 10	Alive
6	16	SD	Ca15-3:54	43 (-201)	7	Alive
			Ca19-9:88	115 (+311)
7	12	SD	Ca19-9:845 200	435 (-991)	7
			CEA:285	2 (-991)		Alive
8	9	SD	Ca15-3:435	204 (-531)	3
			Ca19-9:117	84 (-281)		Dead (9)

¹Change of tumor marker in percent compared to highest value before therapy NA: not assessable.