Brachytherapy and non-cancer mortality in patients with oral cavity and oropharynx SCCs.

Background: Oral cavity and oropharyngeal squamous cell cancers (OC-OPSCC) display high cancer-specific mortality and increased non-cancer mortality. We examined cause of death in patients treated for OC-OPSCC with brachytherapy, chemotherapy, external beam radiation, surgery, or combination of modalities. We hypothesized that brachytherapy does not increase non-cancer mortality comparably with external beam radiation.

Postoperative concurrent chemoradiotherapy with mitomycin in advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck: results from three prospective randomized trials.

Unlabelled: Recent prospective randomized trials have shown concurrent chemoradiotherapy improves locoregional control in postoperative patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck using cisplatin-based regimes. This report presents data pooled from three randomized trials employing mitomycin, selecting those patients treated postoperatively, to evaluate the long-term benefit of mitomycin in the postoperative setting and to compare these results with those of two other recently published randomized trials.

Methods And Materials: Between 1980 and 1999, a total of 331 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck from the three prospective trials were enrolled.

Concurrent chemo-radiotherapy with mitomycin C compared with porfiromycin in squamous cell cancer of the head and neck: final results of a randomized clinical trial.

Purpose: Previous randomized trials have shown a benefit with concurrent use of the hypoxic cell cytotoxin mitomycin C (MC) and radiation (RT) in the management of squamous cell cancer of the head and neck (SCCHN). We conducted a randomized trial comparing MC with porfiromycin (POR) in combination with RT in the management of SCCHN.

Methods And Materials: Between 1992 and 1999, 128 patients with SCCHN were enrolled in this prospective randomized trial.

Microsurgical free flap reconstruction outcomes in head and neck cancer patients after surgical extirpation and intraoperative brachytherapy.

Objectives: The management of recurrent or persistent head and neck cancer poses a challenging problem. Salvage surgery for these individuals consists of ablative surgery, interstitial brachytherapy, and microsurgical free flap reconstruction. This study reviews complications after such reconstruction.

Prognostic significance of cyclooxygenase-2 in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Purpose: To determine the relative prognostic significance of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expression in patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).

Experimental Design: This retrospective cohort study included 82 patients with SCC referred to the Department of Therapeutic Radiology at Yale-New Haven Hospital (Connecticut) between 1980 and 1999 who were treated with primary external beam radiotherapy or gross total surgical resection and postoperative radiotherapy. A microarray of archival tumor tissue was constructed and stained with monoclonal antibodies directed against COX-2 and scored for intensity by a pathologist blinded to the clinical outcomes of the patients.