Cytostatic and immunologic treatment of head and neck tumors

Advanced head and neck tumors have a very low survival rate when treated by classical methods of irradiation and surgery. This is why in the last ten years cytostatics and immunotherapy have been applied. Clinical experience speaks in favour of polychemotherapy in comparison to monochemotherapy. In head and neck tumors bleomycin, methotrexate, 5-fluorouracil, vincristine and cis-Platinum have been used most often. They can be applied as initial therapy, additional therapy after surgery and irradiation, and finally as palliative therapy. Present experiences have shown the best results with initial therapy in 2-3 cycles, before surgery and irradiation. Toxicity of cytostatics depends on the dose and the sensitivity of the patient. The interval between cycles is 2-3 weeks. According to clinical experience, active specific immunotherapy with tumor vaccine did not prove successful. The investigations have thus been directed towards the means which would mobilise the immunological forces of the organism and remove obstacles in reaction of cytotoxic drugs and tumor cells. Such biological response modifiers are interferon, hormone of the thymus, substances which increase, change or restore immunological reactivity, lymphocytes, tumor preventive agents, NK cells, lymphokines, monokines and allokines, plasmophoresis and indomethacin.