[Head and neck tumors: standards of care and new approaches]

We intend to review the general value of radiotherapy in the management of head and neck cancer. Our aim is to define a treatment protocol which is evidence-based and therefore of use in daily clinical practice. There is general agreement on the efficacy of the concomitant schedules combining radiotherapy and chemotherapy, both in the adjuvant setting as well as in the exclusive non-surgical approach. This however does not preclude further research aiming at optimizing the therapeutic index. As far as neoadjuvant chemotherapy is concerned, applied prior to radical local treatment, there are no conclusive data available which allows us to implement this treatment option in routine clinical practice. This approach deserves further investigations and patients should be entered in well designed prospective randomized trials.