TY - JOUR
T1 - Locally recurrent, previously irradiated head and neck cancer
T2 - Concurrent re-irradiation and chemotherapy, or chemotherapy alone?
AU - Wong, Stuart J.
AU - Machtay, Mitchell
AU - Li, Yi
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2006/6/10
Y1 - 2006/6/10
N2 - Patients with locally recurrent head and neck cancer previously treated with radiation have a poor prognosis. Administration of a second course of radiation to tissues within a previous radiation portal, has been traditionally considered unsafe. Survival rates of highly selected patients treated with concurrent chemotherapy and re-irradiation may be as high as 25% at 2 years-exceeding the outcome of matched historical controls treated with chemotherapy alone (10%). However, many questions exist regarding the use of re-irradiation. Uncertainty exists over the criteria for selecting patients who are most appropriate for treatment with re-irradiation. Even greater concern exists regarding toxicity and functional sequelae associated with the use of re-irradiation. Whether the benefits of re-irradiation on locoregional disease control and survival outweigh its potentially severe and life-threatening adverse effects is not clear. In this review, we will discuss re-irradiation and other treatment options for squamous cell carcinoma patients with previously irradiated, locoregional recurrent or second primary tumors in the head and neck, and describe a recently initiated randomized trial comparing chemotherapy plus re-irradiation with chemotherapy.
AB - Patients with locally recurrent head and neck cancer previously treated with radiation have a poor prognosis. Administration of a second course of radiation to tissues within a previous radiation portal, has been traditionally considered unsafe. Survival rates of highly selected patients treated with concurrent chemotherapy and re-irradiation may be as high as 25% at 2 years-exceeding the outcome of matched historical controls treated with chemotherapy alone (10%). However, many questions exist regarding the use of re-irradiation. Uncertainty exists over the criteria for selecting patients who are most appropriate for treatment with re-irradiation. Even greater concern exists regarding toxicity and functional sequelae associated with the use of re-irradiation. Whether the benefits of re-irradiation on locoregional disease control and survival outweigh its potentially severe and life-threatening adverse effects is not clear. In this review, we will discuss re-irradiation and other treatment options for squamous cell carcinoma patients with previously irradiated, locoregional recurrent or second primary tumors in the head and neck, and describe a recently initiated randomized trial comparing chemotherapy plus re-irradiation with chemotherapy.
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U2 - 10.1200/JCO.2005.05.3850
DO - 10.1200/JCO.2005.05.3850
M3 - Review article
C2 - 16763279
AN - SCOPUS:33748177338
VL - 24
SP - 2653
EP - 2658
JO - Journal of Clinical Oncology
JF - Journal of Clinical Oncology
SN - 0732-183X
IS - 17
ER -