THYMIC CARCINOMA WITH AUTOIMMUNE SYNDROME - SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT WITHWEEKLY INFUSIONAL HIGH-DOSE 5-FLUOROURACIL AND LEUCOVORIN

Thymic carcinoma is known for its poor clinical outcome and unsatisfac tory response to conventional chemotherapy. A 53-year-old woman was di agnosed as having metastatic thymic carcinoma in 1989. She received sy stemic chemotherapy containing cisplatin, doxorubicin, and cyclophosph amide, and involved-field radiotherapy A durable complete remission wa s achieved and lasted for 4 years. When the disease recurred in 1995, she was found to have an autoimmune syndrome in addition to pleural ef fusion a posterior mediastinal mass and a left adrenal mass. The autoi mmune manifestations were seen as scleroderma, high titers of rheumato id factor and anti-nuclear antibody. We adopted a novel HDFL regimen, which is composed of weekly 24-hour infusion of high-dose 5-fluorourac il and leucovorin, for this patient Complete remission was achieved ag ain, and autoimmune syndrome was well controlled.