Attempt at local administration of anticancer agents in the form of fat emulsion.

A fat emulsion when injected into tissue is scarcely taken up by the blood vascular system but is retained within the tissue over a relatively extended period, and is distributed slowly into the surrounding tissues and to the regional lymph nodes. Attempts were made to use this property of the emulsion in the local administration of anticancer agents in emulsion, both in experimental animals and in man. The concentrations of bleomycin in the tumor tissue of rats were significantly higher after the intratumoral injection of the emulsion form than when the drug was administered in the aqueous solution, either systemically or intratumorally. Experimental antitumor activity against this tumor was superior after the bleomycin emulsion, as well. In the clinical trials six of eight patients with either squamous cell carcinoma of skin or local recurrence of adenocarcinoma of the breast responded favorably to this treatment.