RTP On Demand — Head & Neck/Thyroid | Research To PracticeRole of induction chemotherapy in the setting of concomitant chemoradiation therapy in locally advanced head and neck cancer
1:32 minutes.
TRANSCRIPTION:
DR LOVE: So you had a poster at ASCO. Is there a role for induction chemotherapy in the setting of concomitant chemoradiation therapy in locally advanced head and neck cancer, systemic review and meta-analysis? The saga continues, huh? DR COHEN: It does. And it’s still controversial, primarily because we have studies that were clearly negative and a recent study that was clearly positive. And so this effort was one to combine all those data sets and ask, when we combine them, does a survival difference emerge? Are there subgroups where a survival difference emerges? And the short answer is, even when we combine the data, although it does look like the curves begin to separate, for most endpoints it wasn’t statistically significant, although what’s emerging is that patients with, again, very advanced disease — and I’ve made this point in the past. So the N2C/N3 patients, perhaps patients with T4 disease, it’s beginning to look like those are patients who might benefit from induction chemotherapy. We’re continuing to analyze the data that — the paper should be coming out in the very near term, but it does look like patients with very advanced disease may benefit from induction chemotherapy. DR LOVE: I’m just fantasizing about induction checkpoint inhibitors. DR COHEN: Not a fantasy. Those studies are going to start very soon. |