Preliminary report on tourniquet for pelvic perfusion.

Prospects for better therapy of neoplastic disease have been stimulated by the suggestion of a surgical approach (regional perfusion) to a chemical method of treatment of malignant neoplasms. 1-3 Ideally, an area such as the pelvis, the frequent seat of a large percentage of nonresectable but still localized malignant disease, is temporarily separated from the rest of the body by surgical techniques and then perfused with high carcinocidal concentrations of anticancer drugs that would be extremely toxic if given systemically. In practice, however, a major problem has been the "leak" out of the perfused area into the systemic circulation. This "leak" has been of such a magnitude that both the dosage of medication and the time of perfusion have been limited by the systemic toxicity. This paper reports the development of a pelvic tourniquet which permits the extracorporeal perfusion of the pelvis in the dog with only a relatively small