© 2004 by Oxford University Press
© 2004 Oxford University Press
EDITORIAL |
Is There a New Role for Induction Chemotherapy in the Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer?
Correspondence to: Arlene A. Forastiere, Department of Oncology, The Johns Hopkins University, Bunting Blaustein Cancer Research Bldg., 1650 Orleans St., Baltimore, MD 21231 (e-mail: af@jhmi.edu).
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The majority of deaths from locally advanced head and neck cancer are due to complications of uncontrolled locoregional disease, and this pattern of failure must be altered to improve patient survival. Over the past 25 years, thousands of patients with head and neck cancer have been enrolled in clinical trials to test whether the addition of platinum-based chemotherapy to local treatment modalities of surgery and radiotherapy improves overall survival. These studies have taken two approaches. In the first approach, several cycles of neoadjuvant or induction chemotherapy (most commonly cisplatin and infusional 5-fluorouracil) precede definitive locoregional therapy (i.e., surgery). The second approach is chemoradiotherapy, the concurrent administration of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Of the two approaches, only chemoradiotherapy has succeeded in changing outcomes. Numerous phase III trials that have compared radiotherapy alone to chemoradiotherapy have shown that the latter statistically significantly improved locoregional control and that the magnitude
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  D. J. Adelstein and M. LeBlanc Does Induction Chemotherapy Have a Role in the Management of Locoregionally Advanced Squamous Cell Head and Neck Cancer? J. Clin. Oncol., June 10, 2006; 24(17): 2624 - 2628. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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