Response to preoperative concomitant radiochemotherapy with mitomycin C and 5-fluorouracil in advanced head and neck cancer

P16 positivity and regression grade predict survival after neoadjuvant radiotherapy of OSCC

“…The “Holy Grail” of cancer therapy may be defined as the ability to predict the response of a patients’ tumour to a particular type of treatment and his survival. In the case of squamous cell cancers of the head and region, the magnitude of histopathological response to neoadjuvant radiotherapy, as measured by assessing the extent of pathohistological regression, was found to have the strongest and most consistent impact in all analyses published so far (Blatt et al., ; Dobrowsky, Dobrowsky, Strassl, Braun, & Scheiber, ; Driemel et al., ; Eder‐Czembirek, Czembirek, & Selzer, ; Freier et al., ; Hermann et al., ; Klug, Berzaczy, Voracek, & Millesi, ; Klug et al., , ; Wedemeyer et al., ). Recently, infection with HPV has been identified as one of the strongest factors affecting the outcome in patients with head and neck cancer.…”

Impact of Tumor Hypoxia and Anemia on Radiation Therapy Outcomes

“…Hypoxic-cell selective agents (bioreductive alkylating compounds) differ from radiosensitizers in that their direct effects on DNA confer cytotoxic effects independent of the administration of radiation therapy [67]. Clinical trials have evaluated mitomycin C, the prototype bioreductive alkylating compound, as an adjunct to radiation therapy in patients with cancers of the head and neck, cervix, and other sites [67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76]. Haffty et al from Yale University School of Medicine analyzed pooled data from two similarly designed randomized trials conducted at their institution that demonstrated that the addition of mitomycin C to radiation therapy for head and neck cancer results in statistically and clinically significant improvements in locoregional control and cause-specific survival at 5 years (Table 3) [67].…”

Preoperative radiochemotherapy and radical resection for stages II to IV oral and oropharyngeal cancer: grade of regression as crucial prognostic factor

“…Randomised trials have shown that a combination of concomitant radiochemotherapy (RCT) and surgery is more effective than radiotherapy alone 1 , and surgical resection alone 16 . A combination known to be very effective consisting of mitomycin C, 5-fluorouracil, and irradiation in a preoperative setting followed by radical surgery is in use as standard therapy for advanced head and neck SCC at our institution 7,10 . Combined RCT treatment regimes, as the one mentioned above, often show a positive response in clinical and radiological reduction of the tumour 24 .…”

“…In a neoadjuvant approach with radical surgery 4 to 6 weeks after preoperative RCT, response can be evaluated microscopically in the operative specimen. Classification scores of tumour regression under radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy have been proposed in various studies 5,7,8 . In this study, we apply a four-grade score previously described by BRAUN et al 2,3 .…”