The Journal of pharmacy and pharmacology
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J. Pharm. Pharmacol. · Oct 2003
Clinical TrialIntratumoural chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil for palliation of bronchial cancer in patients with severe airway obstruction.
Patients with tracheal or major airway obstruction owing to inoperable carcinomas are at risk of developing respiratory failure or postobstructive pneumonia. In such cases, there is an urgency to restore the airway. Bronchoscopic interventional procedures for palliation of malignant airway obstruction are becoming more common in clinical practice. ⋯ The therapy was well tolerated, with no systemic side-effects or any serious complications. The results of this study suggest that in patients with life-threatening airway obstruction, intratumoural injection of anticancer drugs should be regarded as an important new therapeutic approach and an integral part of interventional bronchoscopic management. This study further encourages more general consideration of intratumoural drug injection as a minimally invasive therapeutic method for the treatment of lung cancer and various inoperable cancers.