[Preoperative treatment of lymph node metastasis in cases of gastric cancer by local injection of anticancer drugs--preliminary report].

: For the purpose of producing an anticancer effect on the micrometastasis of the lymph nodes and free cancer cells in the lymphatic ducts in a gastric cancer, activated charcoal was endoscopically injected into the gastric wall preoperatively in 49 cases to adsorb anticancer drugs. The correlation between the histological degree of black staining of the dissected lymph nodes and the clinicopathological factors was studied. Among 2,426 dissected lymph nodes, the degree of black staining was found to amount to 49.9%. Among 201 metastatic lymph nodes, the degree of black staining was 24.9%. Thus, the possibility of an anticancer effect was realized in 25% of the metastatic lymph nodes. From a study of the clinicopathological findings, the degree of black staining was low in cases of advanced cancer. In a histological study, the degree of black staining was found to be higher in the undifferentiated types than in the differentiated types, suggesting that there is a difference in the function of the lymph-reticulo-endothelial system according to the histological type.