[The evaluation of the treatment for esophageal cancer with tubed solidified bleomycin (TS-BLM)].

To prevent lymphatic recurrence after surgical treatment of esophageal cancer, treatment involving tubed solidified Bleomycin (TS-BLM) has been devised. This tubed solidified form was specially prepared so that Bleomycin could be locally administered in higher concentrations than are possible systemically and which would last longer as near as possible to microscopic cancer lesions following resection for esophageal cancer. TS-BLM was implanted at the site of the epigastric lymph nodes after dissection of metastatic lymph nodes, the procedure being shown in Fig. 1. As for evaluating the clinical effect of this treatment, the prognosis for 75 cases of esophageal cancer treated with TS-BLM was studied. The 5-year survival rates for stage III cases were 41.0% and 17.3% respectively for TS-BLM treated and control groups. This difference is statistically significant. In the prognosis for stage IV, all 27 patients in the control group died within 2 years after surgery, whereas, 11.8% of 36 TS-BLM-treated patients are still alive 5 years after, giving a statistically significant difference between these groups (p less than 0.05). This study indicates that TS-BLM is a moderately useful preparation in combination with surgical therapy for patients with advanced esophageal cancer.