-WITH ELECTROCHEMICAL THERAPY IN PAST FOUR YEARS
Xin Yu-Lmg (Professor of Thoracic Surgery, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing 100029, China) INTRODUTION

In 1993, the effectiveness of treating 2516 cases of various kinds of malignant tumours with electrochemical therapy (ECT) in the first five-year (from 1987 to 1992) in China had been reported at the 2nd International Congress ofIABC held in Stockholm. Total short term effectiveness was 78.1 %. The 1, 3, and 5 year survival rates were 84.3 %‚ 62.8 % and 46.6 %‚ respectively. lt was proven that ECT is a method suitable for treating patients with middle and late stage malignant tumours not responding to chemo- and/or radiotherapy, not suitable to surgical operation, or recurrent tumours after surgical operation. (1)

In the past five years (from 1992 to 1996), there are more than one thousand hospitals carried out ECT. There were a number of hospitals starting to use ECT in 1992. The patients treated in these hospitals were collected in the paper. There were more than 4600 patients with various kinds of tumours being treated. The effectiveness of ECT in treating 2008 cases from 8 hospital in the Northern parts of China, at which large number of cases have been treated with complete records, is reported in this paper.

Among the 2008 cases, 1610 cases were with various kinds of malignant tumours. The total effectiveness was 77.0 %. Among them, 1102 cases were followed up to 5 years. The 1, 3 and 5 year survival rates were 87.6 %‚ 58.8 % and 41.0 %‚ respectively. The effectiveness of treating malignant tumours in the first five-year and that in the past four years were of no significant difference. ECT, however, has been used to treat 398 cases of benign tumours in die past four years. The resuits were very satisfactory, especially in treating cavernous hemangioma. The hemangioma could be cured on die one hand and without damaging die body appearance and functions of organs. So, this is a new area for using ECT.

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