Studies on the Feasibility of Adjuvant Chemotherapy with 5-Fluorouracil (FU) and 5-Fluoro-2′-Deoxyruidine (FUDR) in the Immediate Postoperative Period

Introduction  The recent interest in chemotherapy as an adjuvant to surgery has been stimulated by the slow improvement in the cure rate of human cancer,¹ animal and human studies regarding the spread of tumors,^2,3 and the observation that small areas of tumor respond better to chemotherapy than large masses of tumor.⁴ Cooperative clinical studies in the use of TSPA as an adjuvant to radical mastectomy for carcinoma of the breast have apparently shown evidence of a decreased recurrence rate in patients receiving TSPA on the day of surgery and the first and second postoperative days.⁵In the opinion of many investigators, further improvement in chemotherapy as an adjuvant to surgery awaits the development of better anticancer agents. The fluoropyrimidines FU and FUDR have been extensively studied at this institution^6,7 and as a logical extension of these studies the feasibility of FU and FUDR as adjuvants