Search

Changes in plasma platinum concentration after administration of CDDP were studied in six patients on maintenance hemodialysis with malignancies. Plasma exchange was carried out on three patients for the purpose of plasmapheresis. A therapeutic dose of 51 mg/m2 of CDDP was administered to each patient without any severe adverse reactions. Plasma platinum concentration was measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry, and the decay curve of the agent showed a biphasic pattern with an initial steep alpha phase and an ensuing mild beta phase in both hemodialysis patients and normal controls. As these patterns showed no renal excretion of CDDP, it was suggested that the uptake of CDDP into tissue was one of the main causes of the steep alpha phase. In patients given plasma exchange one or two hours after the beginning of CDDP administration, the reduction rates of plasma platinum were 74.7-61.7%, but the collection rate of the agent in the exchanged plasma was only 22.2-7.5%. These results indicated that the uptake of CDDP into tissue might occur rapidly within a few hours after CDDP administration.

Clinical usefulness of a sandwich enzyme immunoassay kit for basic fetoprotein (BFP), which has been developed with two kinds of monoclonal anti-BFP by Nippon Kayaku Co., LTD., was evaluated on detection of BFP in the sera. Based on the consideration of BFP-positive rate under 5% in healthy donors and diagnostic efficiency for cancer, a BFP-concentration of 75ng/ml was used as the cut off value. BFP in the sera was positive in 3.5% of 368 healthy donors, 18.2% of 549 patients with benign diseases and 45.3% of 870 patients with cancer. High positive rates of 50 approximately 60% for the serum BFP were found in cancer of the liver, bile duct, pancreas, kidney, prostate, testis and ovary. In early cancer of the bile duct and urogenital organs, high BFP-positive rates beyond 46% were recognized. BFP values in 7 of 9 BFP-positive patients with urogenital cancer fell down to negative serum level after the radical operation. These results indicate that BFP is a tumor marker with widespread representation in cancer and contributes to serological diagnosis for cancer of digestive and urogenital systems, particularly for early cancer of these systems. Furthermore, it is suggested that BFP is useful for monitoring of cancer patients after surgery.