Recent advances in radiotherapy for head and neck cancers

Advancements in surgery have made it possible to resect cancers that had previously been regarded as incurable. Similarly, new developments in radiation oncology have helped improve the outlook for patients with locally advanced or recurrent head and neck cancers. Among these advancements are refinements in altered fractionation, three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy, intensity-modulated radiotherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery and fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy, neutron-beam radiotherapy, charged-particle radiotherapy, and intraoperative radiotherapy. These recent developments have allowed radiation oncologists to escalate the dose of radiation delivered to tumors while minimizing the dose delivered to surrounding normal tissue. Additionally, more continues to be learned about the optimum delivery of chemotherapy. This article provides an update on the status of these new developments in the treatment of head and neck cancers.