• 10/30/2005
  • Japan
  • Madhup Rastogi et al.
  • Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 2005 35(10):572-579

Objective:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of radiotherapy and concurrent mitomycin-C (MC) plus 5-fluorouracil (5FU) infusion in locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN).

Methods:
Sixty-nine patients with SCCHN (6 Stage III and 63 Stage IV patients) were treated with external beam radiotherapy (70 Gy) and simultaneous intravenous chemotherapy with 5FU (600 mg/m2/day, Days 1–5) and MC (10 mg/m2, Days 5 and 36).

Results:
After a mean follow-up of 28.5 months, 59.4% of patients were alive without disease. Complete response was seen in 76.8% of patients. The 3 years overall survival, locoregional relapse-free survival and disease-free survival was 62.3, 89.8 and 49.5%, respectively. Treatment was well tolerated (Grade III mucositis in 43.5% and Grade II leukopenia in 5.8%).

Conclusions:
This concurrent chemoradiotherapy regimen offers a curative option for our patients where primary and nodal disease is fairly large resulting in hypoxic radioresistant tumors.

Authors:
Madhup Rastogi(1), Madhu Srivastava(1), Kundan S. Chufal(2), M. C. Pant(1), Kirti Srivastava(1) and Madanlal B. Bhatt(1)

Authors’ affiliations:
(1) Department of Radiotherapy, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and
(2) Department of Oncology, Batra Hospital and Medical Research Center, New Delhi, India