Long-Term Follow-Up of JCOG1008, a Randomized Phase II/III Trial of Chemoradiotherapy Comparing 3-Weekly Cisplatin...

The interim analysis of JCOG1008 demonstrated that chemoradiotherapy with cisplatin 40 mg/m² once a week for seven cycles (weekly cisplatin) was noninferior in terms of overall survival (OS) compared with chemoradiotherapy with cisplatin 100 mg/m² once every 3 weeks for three cycles (3-weekly cisplatin) for postoperative high-risk locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (LA-SCCHN). This report presents the long-term follow-up results of JCOG1008. In this phase II/III trial, patients with postoperative high-risk LA-SCCHN were randomly assigned to receive either chemoradiotherapy with 3-weekly cisplatin or with weekly cisplatin. A total of 261 patients were enrolled. At the final analysis, with a median follow-up of 5.6 years, 5-year OS was 58.7% in the 3-weekly arm and 71.2% in the weekly arm (hazard ratio, 0.76 [95% CI, 0.52 to 1.12 [<1.32]]), confirming the noninferiority of the weekly regimen. Both 5-year relapse-free survival (RFS) and 5-year local RFS were numerically better in the weekly arm. No late adverse event showed more than a 10% difference between the two arms. In conclusion, 5-year follow-up confirmed that chemoradiotherapy with weekly cisplatin is noninferior in OS to chemoradiotherapy with 3-weekly cisplatin in patients with postoperative high-risk LA-SCCHN. These results further support the use of weekly cisplatin plus radiotherapy as a reasonable alternative for this patient population.