Standardized Diagnostic Workup and Patient-Centered Decision Making for Surgery and Neck Dissection Followed by Risk-Factor Adapted Adjuvant Therapy Improve Loco-Regional Control in Local Advanced Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Background: Standardized staging procedures and presentation of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients in multidisciplinary tumor boards (MDTB) before treatment and utilization of elective neck dissection (ND) are expected to improve the outcome, especially in local advanced LAOSCC (UICC stages III-IVB). As standardized diagnostics but also increased heterogeneity in treatment applied so far have not been demonstrated to improve outcome in LAOSCC, a retrospective study was initiated.

Methods: As MDTB was introduced into clinical routine in 2007, 316 LAOSCC patients treated during 1991-2017 in our hospital were stratified into cohort 1 treated before (=104) and cohort 2 since 2007 (=212).

Standardized Diagnostics Including PET-CT Imaging, Bilateral Tonsillectomy and Neck Dissection Followed by Risk-Adapted Post-Operative Treatment Favoring Radio-Chemotherapy Improve Survival of Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Unknown Primary Patients.

Background: About five to 10% of cancers in the head and neck region are neck squamous cell carcinoma of unknown primary (NSCCUP). Their diagnosis and treatment are challenging given the risk of missing occult tumors and potential relapse. Recently, we described human papillomavirus (HPV)-related NSCCUP-patients (NSCCUP-P) as a subgroup with superior survival.