A Comparative Study on Weekly Versus Three Weekly Cisplatinum Based Chemoradiation in Locally Advanced Head and Neck Cancers.

INTRODUCTION: Head and Neck Cancers constitute around 30% of cancers occurring in India and majority of cases present with locoregionally advanced disease. Cisplatin based concurrent chemoradiation is the most common modality of definitive treatment in these advanced cases. However, it is unclear regarding priority of weekly versus three weekly cisplatin based concurrent chemoradiation schedule in treatment of such advanced diseases.

AIM: To evaluate the efficacy in terms of response, locoregional control, and disease status in both the arms, and to compare the acute and late toxicity in both arms.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty untreated patients of locally advanced Squamous Cell Carcinoma of head and neck were randomized into two arms: Arm A (n=15) patients received injection cisplatin 30 mg/m(2) weekly along with radiation; Arm B (n=15) patients received injection cisplatin 100 mg/m(2) on a three weekly basis along with radiation. Radiotherapy was delivered to a total dose of 66 Gy in conventional fractionation schedule in telecobalt machine.

RESULTS: Major toxicities included mucositis, dermatitis, vomiting, neutropenia, and anaemia. There was a trend towards increase in grade-III leukopenia and grade-III dermatitis in arm A compared to arm B, and increase in grade-III mucositis and grade-III vomiting in arm B in comparison to arm A although statistically not significant. Within a median follow-up of seven months, in arm A complete response was 73.33% (11/15) and partial response was 26.67%; whereas in arm B complete response was 85.71% (12/14) and partial response was 14.29%, which was not statistically significant. However, there was a trend towards better efficacy in arm B.

CONCLUSION: We conclude that, weekly cisplatin arm is as good as three weekly cisplatin arms. But efficacy is not statistically significant. However, there was a trend of three weekly cisplatin arms towards better efficacy, with comparable haematological and mucosal toxicities.