Prognostic impact of tumor volumetry in patients with locally advanced head-and-neck carcinoma (non-nasopharyngeal) treated by radiotherapy alone or combined radiochemotherapy in a randomized trial.

Purpose: Tumor volume (TV) is one of the main reported factors determining the outcome of treatment in head-and-neck carcinomas. In this study, the prognostic impact of TV was explored in the context of a randomized trial with the patients assigned to receive standard radiotherapy (RT) alone or RT plus platinum compounds (RT alone, RT plus cisplatin, or RT plus carboplatin).

Methods And Materials: The tumor outlines were traced and digitized on each pretreatment CT slice for each of the 101 patients studied.