STUDY OF THE ROLE OF COMBINED RADIOTHERAPY & CHEMOTHERAPY IN TREATMENT OF SQUAMOUS CELL TUMORS OF HEAD AND NECK

<font><font color="#555555"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Introduction: Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common tumor of head and neck. According to clinical stage of disease, radiotherapy and/or surgery is (are) used for treatment of these tumos. Although improvement of treatment results has been reported with chemoradiotherapy , still some controversy exists about the benefit of adding chemotherapy. This study compares chemoradiotherapy vs. radiotherapy alone.<br />Materials and methods: One hundred and fifty five patients with squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck were categorized into two groups randomly. The first group was designed to receive conventional fractionation radiation therapy (90 Patients) , ranging from 50 to 70 Gy (5fractions per week and 2 Gy per fraction) and the other group was planned to get combined chemoradiotherapy (65 patients) .<br />Chemotherapy regimen consisted of Cisplatin (100mg/m<sup>2</sup>) and 5,f-u (750 mg/m<sup>2</sup>), given 3 weeks concurrent or after radiotherapy. For statistical analysis Fischer exact test and independent T-test were used.<br />Results: Initial response was seen in 69.4% following radiotherapy and 85.7% after chemoradiation (p=0.031). Recurrence (Locoregional or distant) was seen in 46.7% and 26.2% of patients in radiotherapy and chemotherapy group, respectively. Mean time for recurrence after treatment was 8.58 and 7.17 months in 2 groups, respectively.<br />Conclusion: Addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy causes decrease in recurrence and increase in initial response rate in squamous cell cancers of head and neck.</span></font></font&gt