Weekly Cisplatin versus Standard Three-weekly Cisplatin in Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy of Head and Neck Cancer: the Baskent University Experience

Background: The majority of patients with head and neck cancer are treated with concurrentchemoradiotherapy. However, toxicity is substantial so that alternate schedules of cisplatin have been tried toovercome this problem. No formal comparison, however, has been reported between alternate schedules andreference regimen. Patients and methods: Fifty-five eligible patients treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapywere retrospectively analyzed. The patients treated with weekly cisplatin were defined as group A, while thepatients treated with standard regimen were defined as group B. Basic demographics and clinical characteristics’,overall survival rate, locoregional or systemic relapse rates, and time to local/systemic relapse were recorded.
Results: One, two, and three-year probability of survival in groups A and B were 75% to 65% after one year,63% to 56%after two, and 63% to 52% after three, respectively. Although time to local and systemic relapse washigher in group B as compared to group A, a statistical analysis was failed to show any significant difference.Furthermore, there was no significant difference between groups with respect to major toxicity.
Conclusion: Inpatients with head and neck cancer, concurrent chemoradiotherapy with weekly cisplatin might be as effectiveas concurrent chemoradiotherapy with bolus cisplatin.