The subject of this study was a 64-year-old male. He had experienced a sensation of abdominal fullness during treatment for chronic hepatitis C at a neighborhood clinic. He was referred to our hospital for work-up upon discovery of elevated AFP.
Examination on admission revealed abdominal swelling, ascites and marked swelling of the liver. The AFP was 11, 535ng/ml. A tumor measuring 9 by 8 centimeters was revealed in the right lobe of the liver on the CT scan, and there were many metastatic lesion 1cm in diameter in both the lung field. Since the liver tumor was considered unresectable, in August 1992, MMC and ADM were administered intraarterially just once at doses of 10 and 20mg, respectively. At the end of August, oral administration of UFT at a dose of 600mg/day was started.
The patient was discharged after 3 weeks of treatment, but the administration of 300mg/day of UFT was continued, Since hepatic function tended to be aggravated, administration of Shosaiko-to (EK-9) was commenced at a dose of 6g/day. With the combination therapy, the symptoms were gradually relieved and the subjective symptoms disappeared. In September 1992 (8 months after initiation of Shosaiko-to administration), the shadows due to lung metastasis were absent on the chest x-ray examination, and the CT scan turned negative for the tumor in the right lobe. AFP and PIVKA-II decreased below 11.7ng/ml and 0.06AU/ml, respectively. As of December 1994, the patient is still on combination therapy consisting of Shosaiko-to and UFT. Neither adverse reactions such as weight loss have been induced nor has the tumor returned. The general condition of the patient is good.
The results obtained in this case suggest that Shosaiko-to and UFT in combination are effective in treating liver carcinoma.