title: Multimodality therapy for head and neck cancer.
abstract: The refinement of radiation therapy techniques should result in a decrease in morbidity in canine and feline nasal carcinoma patients and should further allow for the addition of adjuvant therapies. Patients with large oral tumors that are incompletely excised should have radiation therapy added to their treatment regimen. Tumors with significant metastatic potential, such as melanoma, should be considered for addition of chemotherapy. Carboplatin has activity in melanomas and is being added at several institutions, but trial results are not yet available. Chemoradiation has become the treatment of choice for human head and neck squamous cell carcinomas but remains largely unexplored in veterinary medicine. Hopefully, development of chemoradiation will benefit feline squamous cell carcinoma patients, because current treatment regimens are largely ineffective. Immunotherapy agents and targeted biologic therapeutics seem to hold promise for the future.
authors.affiliation: Southwest Veterinary Oncology, 141 East Fort Lowell Road, Tucson, AZ 85705, USA. mkkl@mindspring.com
authors.forename: Mary K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Klein
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D004283:Dog Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D004285:Dogs; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy / Q000662:veterinary*