Background: Therapeutic efficacy of endoscopic photodynamic therapy (PDT) for advanced gastric cancer is limited. Recent animal studies have clarified the very important role of host immune cells in PDT. We expected a potential cooperative effect of PDT and immunotherapy, and developed immunotherapycombined PDT (I-PDT) for advanced gastric cancer.
Methods and materials: We applied I-PDT for two elderly patients with complicated advanced gastric cancer (92- and 89-yr-old males). Tumor bleeding prevented them from leading an ordinary home life. Initial simple PDT was not effective. Patients received over 109 activated T-lymphocyte-predominant autologous immune cells, mainly intravenously, 5x for one course. PDT was performed endoscopically on the day of the third infusion.
Results: Two or three courses of I-PDT safely stopped tumor bleeding, and the initial poor prognoses of a few months of survival seemed to be improved (patient 1, over 32 mo; patient 2, 14 mo).
Conclusions: I-PDT was found to be a safe, feasible treatment that could improve symptoms resulting from advanced gastric cancer.