Changes in Treatment of Advanced Oropharyngeal Cancer, 1985–2001

Abstract

Our results suggest that chemoradiation is increasingly becoming more prevalent at all facility types. The use of radiation alone as primary treatment significantly declined during the study period. In view of the complexity and multidisciplinary nature of treatment for oropharyngeal cancer, it is recommended that care of such patients be discussed at institutional tumor boards and that the recommendations be systematically recorded and documented in hospital cancer registries.

Transoral resection of tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma

“…Surgical management of tonsillar carcinoma has waned in popularity, while chemoradiotherapy as a primary treatment has increased by approximately 15% in the past decade. 20 One reason for this paradigm shift in treatment is the perception that surgery, compared with other treatments, is associated with increased morbidity. In the study by Parsons et al, 8 surgery was associated with a severe complication rate of 23% and a fatality rate of 3%, whereas the respective rates for RT were 6% and 0.8%.…”

Combined surgery and postoperative radiotherapy for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma in Korea: analysis of 110 cases

“…Although the percentage of OSCC patients treated with chemoradiation has increased, a significant proportion of patients with advanced stage disease are still treated with surgery plus postoperative radiotherapy as a primary treatment, especially in teaching facilities 2,19 . These treatment policies may be based on the fact that patients with OSCC have advanced-stage disease at initial presentation and improvement in local/regional control rates can be achieved using surgery followed by postoperative radiation therapy 4,16,18 .…”

Matched-Pair Analysis in Patients with Advanced Oropharyngeal Cancer: Surgery versus Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy

“…Although the initial treatment strategy for advanced OPC has recently shifted from surgery toward CCRT [12,13], no anatomic site-specific prospective randomized trials evaluating outcomes after surgery versus those after CCRT are available. Both surgery and CCRT are currently used as standard treatments for advanced head and neck cancer.…”