Abstract
Radiation therapy and surgery are the basic modalities of treatment in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Definitive and postoperative radiochemotherapy is now a standard component of a therapeutic algorithm in patients with locoregionally advanced disease.
Several meta-analyses have shown that radiochemotherapy prolongs survival compared with radiotherapy alone. This benefit was mainly due to an improvement in the locoregional control and only had a marginal effect on distant metastases.
Cisplatin is a potent radiosensitizer, most commonly used for radiochemotherapy. Despite the benefits of radiochemotherapy, this treatment also carries risks of severe local and systemic toxicities.
Newer developments include EGFR antibodies, which seem able to improve the clinical outcome. Anti-EGFR treatment with radiotherapy in one randomised study improved overall survival when compared with radiotherapy alone.
In palliative treatment monochemotherapy, polychemotherapy or combination of chemotherapy and EGFR antibodies are appropriate tools against progression of tumors. therapy, palliative chemotherapy.