Necessity for adjuvant neck dissection in setting of concurrent chemoradiation for advanced head-and-neck cancer.

Purpose: Neck dissection has traditionally played an important role in the treatment of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck who present with regionally advanced neck disease (N2-N3). Radiotherapy and concurrent chemotherapy improves overall survival in advanced head-and-neck cancer compared with radiotherapy alone. The necessity for postchemoradiation neck dissection is controversial.