Vol.100 No.12 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 100 No. 12 December 2007
Recent Treatment Modalities for Advanced
Head and Neck Carcinoma
Mamoru Tsukuda
(Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine)
Conventional treatments with surgery and/or radiotherapy have significantly improved the poor outcome of advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). After the clinical application of cisplatin (CDDP), chemotherapy including CDDP has been administered for the initial treatment of advanced HNSCC, e.g., neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) and concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCR). Using the standard chemotherapy with CDDP and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), i.e., the PF regimen, a treatment modality with NAC has been examined, however NAC with the PF regimen has not improved the poor prognosis of advanced HNSCC in comparison with CCR. Recently, NAC with taxane in addition to the PF regimen, i.e., TPF regimen, has been shown to be more efficacious than PF alone, providing survival benefits. However, CCR has also contributed to improved survival of advanced HNSCC. Patients, to define the limitations of CCR, the optimal regimen should be studied and evaluated in order to augment the anti-tumor effect of CCR. Multidisciplinary treatments including molecular targeted agents are being developed, since conventional treatment combined with a certain molecular targeted agent is more effective than the conventional treatment alone. In the future, our adequate treatment scheme including molecular targeted agents should be developed for advanced HNSCC.
Key words : head and neck carcinoma, treatment modality, chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy