Head and neck cancer with simultaneous lung cancer

The simultaneous occurrence of a primary malignant tumor of the lung or pulmonary metastasis in patients with head and neck cancer is uncommon. In response to the question, "Are efforts toward management of cancer in the head and neck region in a person with simultaneous malignant tumor of the lung an exercise in futility?" we present six cases evaluated at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport during a 19-year period. Men with squamous cell cancers at both locations and locally advanced malignant tumors of the lung were predominant in this series of patients. Chemoradiation was applied because of extensive disease at one or both neoplastic sites. Long-term survival was not observed in most patients (including the aggressively treated individuals) whose malignant neoplasms were concurrently managed by non-operative means.