Chemotherapy for localized head and neck squamous cell cancers

Abstract

Concomitant chemotherapy with cisplatin (100 mg/m every 3 weeks) improves outcome for high-risk patients in the postoperative setting and for inoperable disease. Toxicity is increased. Other schemes of potentiation are sometimes used to reduce toxicity, but efficiency is diminished. Cetuximab also improves outcome, but there has been no direct comparison with cisplatin. Immunotherapy is currently being evaluated in association with radiation therapy. Trials are ongoing to evaluate the impact of de-escalation for human papillomavirus-positive patients. The association of docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil is the standard of induction; it is also the standard treatment for laryngeal preservation. Many trials have attempted to compare the concomitant approach with the sequential treatment; none have managed to show a difference between the two. After induction chemotherapy, there is still no standard of potentiation of radiotherapy.

Overexpression of miR-26b decreases the cisplatin-resistance in laryngeal cancer by targeting ATF2

“…However, a large proportion of laryngeal cancer patients have suffered from the advanced-stage disease at the first diagnosis [ 1 , 2 ]. Because of the wide metastasis of cancer cells, surgery is not sufficient to extirpate the tumor completely for these patients with advanced-stage laryngeal cancer, but chemotherapy is a feasible strategy to improve the patient’s prognosis [ 3 , 4 ]. However, chemoresistance is a common phenomenon when the cancer cells were constantly exposed to chemotherapeutic drugs f in laryngeal cancer patients [ 5 ].…”

Therapeutic approaches for the treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma–An update on clinical trials

“…Localized HNSCC is usually treated with surgery and/or chemoradiotherapy in a multidisciplinary manner [ 92 ]. Concomitant chemotherapy consists of regular docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-FU treatment followed by radiation, which has been shown to enhance clinical outcomes in post-operative or inoperable situations.…”

Amides of pyrrole- and thiophene-fused anthraquinone derivatives: A role of the heterocyclic core in antitumor properties

“…Chemotherapy remains a major treatment modality in cancer for decades [1][2][3], with anthraquinone (anthracene-9,10-dione) derivatives such as doxorubicin (Dox), epirubicin, idarubicin (Figure 1A) as the key components of many therapeutic regimens [4][5][6]. A series of studies have been focused on optimization of efficacy and safety profile of anthraquinone-based compounds [7][8][9][10][11][12].…”