[Gemcitabine combined with capecitabine in the treatment for 41 patients with relapsed or metastatic biliary tract carcinoma].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the efficacy of the combination of gemcitabine with capecitabine in the chemotherapy for patients with relapsed or metastatic biliary tract carcinoma. METHODS: Forty-one patients with unresectable relapsed or metastatic carcinoma of the biliary tract were treated from March 2000 to December 2004. The regimen consisted of intravenous administration of gemcitabine plus oral intake of capecitabine every 3 weeks for more than 2 cycles. The parameters including tumor response, clinical benefit rate,survival and safety were observed. RESULTS: Thirty-six patients were valuable and 5 patients were excluded from this series due to various reasons. Eleven patients (30.1%) had a partial response and another 11 patients (30.1%) experieced stable disease with a clinical benefit rates of 61.1%. The median overall survival time and time to progression were 10 months and 6 months, respectively. The one-year survival rate was 40.0%. The adverse events including nausea, diarrhea and hand-foot syndrome, fatigue, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia were frequently observed, which were usually in grade I or II, rarely in grade III and none in grade IV (NCI-CTC). CONCLUSION: Our results show that the regimen of gemcitabine combined with capecitabine is effective and well tolerated in patients with unresectable relapsed or metastatic carcinoma of the biliary tract.

[Comparing serum tumor antigen detection combined with CT scan with PET-CT for lung cancer diagnosis].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is a new bio-imaging system which combined metabolic with anatomic imaging. This system has better three-dimensional definition and earlier tumor detection potential. This study was to compare the accuracy of tumor antigen detection combined with CT scan with PET-CT for lung cancer diagnosis and staging. METHODS: A total of 43 lung cancer patients diagnosed by operation or acupuncture, received breast CT scan, tumor antigen detection, and PET-CT scan, were selected. The accuracies of these 2 methods and their impacts on lung cancer staging were compared. RESULTS: The accurate diagnosis rate of tumor antigen detection combined with CT scan was 67.44%, and that of PET-CT scan was 90.70%. Local focus detection rates were 86.05% and 95.35%, respectively; mediastinal lymph nodes detection rates were 65.12% and 83.72%, respectively. PET-CT detected 6 cases of distant metastasis which were not detected by tumor antigen detection combined with CT scan. Compared with CT scan, 5 (11.63%) cases were upstaged and 7 (16.28%) cases were downstaged by PET-CT, which led to therapeutic strategy changes in 4 (9.3%) cases. CONCLUSION: Compare with tumor antigen detection combined with CT scan, PET-CT scan is more sensitive and accurate in diagnosing and staging lung cancer.