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Updated: Aug 21, 2026
Endobronchial Ultrasound-guided Intratumoral Injection of Cisplatin for the Treatment of Isolated Mediastinal Recurrence of Lung Cancer
Published on: February 12, 2017
Survival Outcomes With Concurrent Systemic Therapy in Patients With a Medical Contraindication to Cisplatin in the
Deniz Can Demircioglu1, Sohil Singh1, Johnny Belcher1
1Medical School, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
Background:
Patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who are medically ineligible for cisplatin lack a standard concurrent systemic therapy.
Methods:
We used the National Cancer Database to identify patients diagnosed from 2015 onward with non-metastatic, locally advanced squamous HNSCC treated with definitive radiation therapy and concurrent systemic therapy, receiving either chemotherapy or cetuximab (using immunotherapy as a surrogate for cetuximab in the NCDB). Cisplatin-ineligibility was defined using the age and comorbidity criteria from NRG-HN004. Overall survival was compared using Kaplan-Meier analysis and an inverse probability weighted Cox proportional hazards model.
Results:
The final cohort included 6045 patients: 5441 receiving chemotherapy and 604 receiving cetuximab. In the weighted Cox model, chemotherapy was not significantly associated with improved overall survival compared to cetuximab (HR, 1.08; 95% CI, 0.94-1.23; p = 0.281).
Conclusions:
In this retrospective analysis, no survival advantage was found with chemotherapy over cetuximab in cisplatin-ineligible patients. Future, randomized trials are necessary to define optimal systemic therapy in this population.
