III. CANCER TREATMENT PROGRAM AREA

1. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES
The program of the Treatment Area continued to extend clinical studies into a more disease-oriented approach.
The treatment of bladder cancer has recently seen progress in multidisciplinary treatment, combining surgery, drug instillation, intracavity irradiation or local hyperthermia. However, regimens and protocols of treatment are too diverse to evaluate each protocol comparatively. Therefore, our conclusion is to organize them as standardized ones, and at the same time, to establish a common concept in criteria of histopathological diagnosis of bladder cancer as well.
In the field of radiation oncology, no seminar was held in the fiscal year 1981, but vigorous cooperation was realized through the scientist exchange program.
The investigations in immunological approach to cancer had been conducted in the Biology and Diagnosis Program Area. However, from the beginning of the second five-year term, the topics on clinical treatment with biologic response modifiers were transferred to the Treatment Area. In 1981 fiscal year, the first seminar on immunotherapy was organized in the Treatment Area in collaboration with the coordinator of the Biology and Diagnosis Program Area, Dr. Yamamura. The clinical result of treatment with Nocardia cell wall skeleton of lung cancer patients and also the basic approach in clinical application of T-cell growth factor (TCGF) and monoclonal antibody, as it is or combined with cytotoxic molecule, were the foci of discussions.
Cancer chemotherapy still remains a major focus of interest in this area. In the present situation, the progress in chemotherapy depends greatly on development of new and more effective, anticancer drugs with low toxicity, and also on the establishment of the more reliable protocols of treatment with combined modalities. Very active cooperation and exchange of information and materials necessary for collaborative activities were achieved. Through the past years of cooperative program, information exchange and collaboration in developing new drugs has been encouraged and are now established, but further effort will be necessary to develop a better mutual understanding and collaboration in the field of clinical investigation, because there are still differences of criteria in the histologic diagnosis of some kinds of tumors, responses to toxic manifestation of drugs, and social backgrounds of therapeutic science in general between the both countries.
A successful cooperative clinical trial of advanced gastric cancer, using a common protocol in both countries, has been continued for the past four years, and it has had a very positive impact on future collaboration in the clinical field.