[Preoperative chemotherapy for head and neck cancer]

The authors have studied preoperative chemotherapy for head and neck cancer since 1963, focusing on intra-arterial chemotherapy. The results obtained revealed that preoperative chemotherapy played an important role in the improvement of 5-year survival in maxillary sinus carcinoma and tongue carcinoma. However, functional and cosmetic damage after radical surgery has newly energed as problems to be resolved. The appearance of cisplatin has raised an important the level of effectiveness of cancer chemotherapy in recent years. Since the combination of cisplatin and bleomycin analogs revealed a remarkable synergistic effect in experimental chemotherapy, it has been used clinically as preoperative or preradiation chemotherapy for advanced Stage III and IV head and neck cancer. Under the above-mentioned circumstances, treatment for head and neck cancer has undergone various changes over the past twenty years. At present it is no exaggeration to say that the period in which dependence was placed on only surgery and/or radiation is over. The authors would like to emphasize that preoperative chemotherapy should be carried out as a part of multidisciplinary approach under a new concept of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy which includes not only preoperative chemotherapy but also preradiation chemotherapy. The role of preoperative chemotherapy, its current status and future prospects are discussed in this paper, looking back on the history of chemotherapy for head and neck cancer.