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Abstract
Hydrazine sulfate was administered to a total of 233 patients with disseminated tumors in various sites, including 3 patients with recurrent desmosarcoma. The drug in tablet or gelatin‐capsule form was given in 60 mg doses up to 3 times daily for a period of 1.0 to 1.5 months and in some cases up to 6 months. Repeated therapeutic courses (from 2 to 24) were interspersed by 14‐ to 30‐day intervals of cessation of drug therapy. Objective, subjective and side effects were evaluable in 225 patients. Gastrointestinal patients made up the largest single group (107 patients), followed by lung cancer patients (52 patients) and patients with malignant lymphomas (19 patients).
Tumor regression of over 50%, evaluated according to standard criteria, was noted in individual patients with neuroblastoma, lung cancer, advanced Hodgkin's disease and recurrent infiltrative desmosarcoma. The period of remission in 1 of the neuroblastomas, resistant to the already‐known cytostatics, has lasted 5 years, and in 1 of the cases of desmosarcoma, 2 years. The most significant antitumor effect of the drug was that of tumor stabilization, recorded in a total of 95 (42.2%) of the patients. Of equal significance were the drug's peculiar favorable symptomatic effects—improvement of appetite, weight stabilization, weight gain, disappearance or reduction of severe weakness, reduction or complete elimination of pain, disappearance or reduction of fever, psychostimulation even in the terminal stage of the disease—which occurred in over 65 % of the patients and were most pronounced in 24 %. Side effects of the drug (dizziness, vomiting and other signs of dyspepsia) occurred in 22% of the patients and did not require special treatment. Hypotensive, cardiotoxic, nephrotoxic and myelodepressive effects of the drug were not observed.