[Laboratory and clinical studies of cefotiam in digestive diseases]

Experimental and clinical studies on cefotiam (CTM), a new synthetic cephalosporin, were performed in digestive diseases. Among the 7 cases of 'cholelithiasis and cholangitis', 6 cases (86%) showed better response than "effective". Among the 9 cases of infections except 'cholelithiasis and cholangitis' which had no connection with cancers, 6 cases (67%) showed better response than "effective". Among the 15 cases of 'infections following advanced cancers', 7 cases (47%) showed better response than "effective". This inferior result was due to the relation to factors coming from cancers. CTM was effective in not only infections of the aged but that which resisted antibiotics of penicillins and the other cephems. Sensitivity of E. coli, Klebsiella and S. aureus was made a comparative study of by MIC and disc test. It was found as a result that CTM had the equal or superior antimicrobial activity to other antibiotics of cephems, penicillins and aminoglycosides.

[High-dose combination chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation in breast carcinoma]

Twelve patients with breast carcinoma were treated with high-dose combination chemotherapy supported by autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT). Seven of them had advanced metastatic disease and received 12 cours of A treatment, response rate (CR +PR) was 71.5% (CR: 1, PR: 4, NC: 2 and PD: 0) and it should be noted that all 4 patients who had received adriamycin 150 mg+5-fluorouracil 1,500 mg divided in two consecutive days or equivalent high-dose of other chemotherapeutic regimen responded (CR: 1 and PR: 3). To the therapy Five other patients received ABMT-supported adjuvant chemotherapy because of high risk of recurrence. One of them died of unrelated cause and other 4 are free of disease at 11, 14, 17 and 17 months following this treatment. A major toxicity was of myelosuppression and nadirs of neutrophils were 100-1,800 on days 9-19 (median: 400 on day 12), neutrophils recovered rather rapidly to levels of greater than or equal to 1,000, greater than or equal to 1,500 and greater than or equal to 2,000 by day 15, 16 and 17, respectively. High-dose combination chemotherapy with ABMT seemed quite effective in advanced breast carcinoma and a similar approach in adjuvant setting has also been suggested.

High-dose chemotherapy supported by autologous bone marrow transplantation in solid tumors

High-dose chemotherapy supported by autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) was given 34 times on twenty six patients with solid tumor. Excluding 6 patients with adjuvant use and 2 patients with non-evaluable lesion, the response rate (CR + PR) of 44.4% was observed among 18 evaluable patients with advanced solid tumor. The results seem to be quite significant since many of the patients had become refractory to conventional treatments and intensity of chemotherapy was still moderate in some of the patients. ABMT following a course of chemotherapy is a promising approach of overcoming the toxic limitations of intensive chemotherapy since a dose-response relationship exists in many situations of cancer chemotherapy and ABMT appears to prevent fatal myelosuppression.

[Clinical studies of cefoperazone in the treatment of pyoderma (author's transl)]

Cefoperazone (CPZ), a new semisynthetic cephalosporin derivative, was administered in the treatment of pyoderma. The results are shown as follows. CPZ was given to 21 patients with pyoderma. In 21 patients, marked improvement was seen in 7, effectiveness in 10, slight improvement in 1 and ineffective in 3. Total clinical effectiveness rate was 81.0%. No serious side effects were observed.