[Experience with multidrug chemotherapy for patients with head and neck malignant tumors--comparison between CP...

A combined chemotherapy regimen (CP chemotherapy) consisting of cisplatin (CDDP) and peplomycin (PEP) was employed to treat patients with head and neck malignant tumors. More recently, PTP chemotherapy added to CP chemotherapy with THP-adriamycin (THP-ADM) was employed. We proceeded to investigate the efficacy of these two chemotherapeutic regimens. The subjects of this study included 22 patients in the CP chemotherapy group (18 males and four females). The PTP chemotherapeutic regimen was administered to 23 patients (18 males and five females). The results showed response rates of 54.5% for the CP chemotherapeutic regimen and 60.9% for the PTP chemotherapeutic regimen. In both treatment groups, the response rate decreased as the disease stage increased. As adverse reactions to the chemotherapeutic regimens, nausea and vomiting occurred in 63.6% of the CP group and 69.6% of the PTP group. Leukopenia was detected in 18.2% of the CP group and 69.6% of the PTP group, while alopecia was seen only in the PTP group, at an incidence of 39.1%. Cardiotoxicity was not detected in either group.