[Preliminary results of accelerated hyperfractionated split course radiotherapy of advanced head and neck cancers]

The treatment results of new hyperfractionated, accelerated, split course irradiation schedule were presented. The material consisted of 27 (22 men, 5 women) advanced (T2N2C-3, T3-4 N2-3), inoperable head and neck (11--oropharynx, 9--larynx, 6--tongue, 1--hypopharynx) squamous cell cancer patients. Patients were in good performance status (Zubrod < or = 2). The age varied from 44 to 70 years (mean 56). All patients were irradiated using 6 MV photon beams, 1.6 Gy per fraction delivered twice a day with 6 hours of gap to the total dose of 64 Gy in the overall treatment time of 28 days (with 8 days long gap in the middle of treatment) to avoid accelerated clonogens repopulation. No one patient had a gap caused by treatment adverse effects. The highest mucosal acute reaction evaluated using Dische scale appeared in 3-4 week of treatment and varied from 6 to 25 points (mean 16 points). The analysis shown 34% total survival and 41% survival excluding death caused by a distant dissemination, in the period of 50 months. No correlation between T and N stage, tumour and nodes diameters and degree of regression and survival probability was found. The obtained results allow to conclude that CHA-CHA schedule is safe and acceptable by patients irradiation modality giving promising treatment results but the final confirmation of its value should be proven in a next, randomised phase of trial.