Summary
The clinical effectiveness of immunotherapy with the cell wall skeleton of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin was assessed in a study involving 140 consecutive patients with gastric cancer, who were gastrectomized at a single institution from January 1976 through December 1978. These patients were randomized by an envelope method after operation and divided into three treatment groups: ‘control’, ‘chemotherapy’, and ‘chemotherapy plus immunotherapy with BCG-CWS.’ Only two patients who died during surgery were excluded, and a survey of survival periods was made on the remaining 138 patients in January 1982.
As a result, statistically significant differences in the survival rate curve were observed between the control and chemotherapy plus immunotherapy groups (P<0.01), and between the chemotherapy and chemotherapy plus immunotherapy groups (P<0.05). These results emphasize effectiveness of BCG-CWS as an adjuvant immunotherapeutic agent in gastrectomized cancer patients.
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Ochiai, T., Sato, H., Hayashi, R. et al. Postoperative adjuvant immunotherapy of gastric cancer with BCG-cell wall skeleton. Cancer Immunol Immunother 14, 167–171 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00205355
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00205355