Long-term follow-up of chemotherapy in advanced head and neck cancer

We treated 94 patients with advanced head and neck cancer with a combined-modality protocol that included induction chemotherapy followed by surgery with and without radiotherapy. With a minimum follow-up of 3 1/2 years, 33 (35%) of the patients were alive and disease free. Thirty (32%) of the patients died of recurrent head and neck cancer. Complete response to chemotherapy and initial tumor bulk correlated with prolonged disease-free survival. Site of disease had no effect. There appeared to be no advantage to the use of routine postoperative radiotherapy in these advanced tumors.