The role of neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy regimens consisting of different combinations of drugs in the treatment of advanced oral cancer.
We performed a retrospective analysis on the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with three cycles of methotrexate (100 mg/m2 on day 1), cisplatin (90 mg/m2 on day 1) and bleomycin (20mg/m2 on day 1-5) with 21 d gap between each cycle in 44 patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the cheek, lip and tongue followed by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy consisting of cisplatin (90 mg/m2 on day 1), Mitomycin C (6 mg/m2 on day 1) and 5-fluorouracil (1000 mg/m2 120 h continuous infusion from day 1) repeated every 3 weeks for three cycles. Following induction chemotherapy, complete response was observed in 11 out of 44 patients (25%), and a partial response in a further 28 patients (64%). The overall median survival of all patients was 29 months and those in stage III and stage IV were 30 and 15 months respectively (P< 0.001). The median duration of the time to relapse in patients who responded to adjuvant chemotherapy was 28 months. The main toxic effect was vomiting followed by hematological toxicity. No treatment-related deaths occurred. The regimen showed a significant response, encouraging median survival and a good tolerability profile.
Basu
S
S
Department of Medical Oncology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Calcutta, India.
Khanra
M
M
Dash
B
B
Majumdar
J
J
Biswas
J
J
Chaudhuri
P
P
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000401:mortality; D017024:Chemotherapy, Adjuvant / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000401:mortality; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D055502:Secondary Prevention; D015996:Survival Rate