Clinical Experiences With Intravenous Colchicine in Inoperable Bronchogenic Carcinoma

¹ Director of Medicine, B. S. Pollak Hospital for Chest Diseases; Professor of Medicine, Seton Hall College of Medicine.
² Research Fellow in Medicine and Cytology, B. S. Pollak Hospital for Chest Diseases; Instructor in Clinical Medicine, Seton Hall College of Medicine.

The marked rise in the incidence of cancer of the lung accentuates the importance for its early detection. Unfortunately, since most instances of this type of malignancy seen today are Inoperable, the burden of management rests on a medical palliative regimen. A vigorous search for chemotherapeutic agents is being maintained.

There have been extensive exprimental studies with colchicine. It exerts: (1) a cytotoxic effect by inhibiting spindle formation and arresting cell division in the metaphase stage and (2) an anti-tumor effect by destroying the endothelial cells of newly formed capillaries thereby inducing hemorrhage and necrosis.

Colchicine has received comparatively little attention in its application to human cancer chemotherapy. The availability of an intravenous preparation prompted the present clinical study. Ten patients with advanced bronchogenic carcinoma were treated with colchicine and an equal number with colchicine combined with the conventional type of Irradiation and associated medication. It is noteworthy that large amounts of colchicine administered Intravenously were well tolerated by most of the patients. The subjective and objective manifestations of improvement in both groups are recorded. The colchicine-x-ray treated group seemingly fared better but this could possibly be due to the effects of radiotherapy per se.

It is necessary to continue to explore many modalities. Colchicine may merit further application as another tool in conjunction with other currently used measures in the palliative regimen.