A study of multi-drug combination chemotherapy including cisplatin (CDDP) for cancer of the head and neck

Abstract

The following four multidrug combination chemotherapy regimens were administered to 74 patients with cancers of the head and neck at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology of this hospital during the period, March 1983 to March 1988. 1. CDDP, Peplomycin (PEP) 2. adriamycin (ADR), CDDP, PEP 3. vincristine (VCR), CDDP, PEP 4. CDDP, 5-FU. The subjects were 53 men and 21 women. The age distribution was from 39 to 77 years of age. Histological analysis showed 71 cases to have squamous cell carcinoma. The response rate for all the subjects was 43; with 13CR cases and 19PR cases. The response rate for previously non-treated cases was 51% with 7CR cases and 15PR cases. For the previously treated cases, the response rate was 32% with 6CR cases and 4PR cases. The response rate breakdown by treatment was as follows: 1 43%; 2 33%; 3 56%; 4 0%. When the Kaplan-Meier method was used to examine the survival rate for the previously untreated cases with high efficacy ratings, the 5-year survival rate was 47.2%. The above results show multidrug combination chemotherapy to be very useful for the treatment of advanced cancer and recurrent cancer.