Spontaneous Regression Of Pulmonary Metastases From Transitional Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Sixteen months following a vaginal hemorrhage in a (then) 61-year-old patient, a diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix, Grade II, was made, and confirmed by two separate biopsy and microscopic studies of the tissues removed. Standard treatment with eighteen x-ray exposures totaling 4,140 Roentgen units, and 3,600 milligram hours of radium was without effect as judged by re-examination one year later. At some time during the ensuing two years, however, there was a complete regression of the carcinoma. Subsequent roentgenograms and physical examinations, and, as well, two explorations of the abdomen, during an appendectomy and a cholecystectomy, proved neither primary nor secondary growths to be present. The patient reacted anaphylactically to the use of Diodrast. Although the intractable pain originally present required for its amelioration daily doses as great as l6 grains of morphine sulfate, the patient, when informed that the original tumor was no longer present, immediately, completely, and with no signs or symptoms of narcotic withdrawal, needed neither substitute analgesic drugs nor treatment. During the subsequent ten years, no medicines, excepting those needed for each surgical procedure, have been administered or taken. It is suggested that there may be a mechanism common to tumor regression, narcotic tolerance, and some allergic phenomena. Recent studies concerned with the immunological aspects of malignant disease point to this area of exploration.