Nutritional and immunological investigations in head and neck cancer patients before and after therapy

We studied the nutritional and immunological states of 20 patients with advanced head and neck carcinomas. Treatment included chemotherapy with methotrexate, cis-platinum and bleomycin prior to operation and radiotherapy. Nutritional and immunological parameters were examined before and after each therapy given. Most of these parameters decreased during chemotherapy. However, while we found that nutrition improved or normalized by the end of the primary tumor treatment, immunologic parameters failed to change significantly.