• 12/17/2004
  • New York
  • no attribution
  • cancerpage.com

Concomitant treatment with cisplatin improves locoregional control in patients undergoing hyperfractionated radiotherapy for advanced head and neck cancer, according to Swiss researchers report in the December 1st issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

For these patients, “the most effective combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy with acceptable toxicity remains to be defined,” Dr. Pia Huguenin of University Hospital Zurich and colleagues note.

To investigate further, the researchers studied 224 patients with squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck who given hyperfractionated radiotherapy at a median dose of 74.4 Gy over a course of 5 weeks. They were randomized to also receive two concomitant cycles of cisplatin or to radiotherapy alone.

Median time to any treatment failure was 19 months in the combination group and 16 months in the radiotherapy group. However, this difference was not significant.

There was also no significant difference in overall survival and late toxicity between the two groups. However, locoregional control and distant disease-free survival significantly improved in those given cisplatin.

Although the researchers note that further investigation is required, they conclude that “two cycles of cisplatin monotherapy significantly prolongs time to local failure, time to locoregional failure, and time to distant metastatic relapse, with a tendency toward improved overall survival.”

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. K. Kian Ang of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, writes that the findings help “in defining a less toxic radiation-chemotherapy platform to which novel agents can be added.”

SOURCE:
Journal of Clinical Oncology 2004;22:4605-4607,4613-4621