これからの日本における局所進行口腔癌治療を考察する

抄録

In the era of Japan’s super-aging society, local control is currently the only suitable way for patients with locally advanced oral cancer to live out the remainder of their lives in a meaningful way. Until now, in the treatment of locally advanced oral cancer, sufficient functional maintenance has not yet been achieved after surgery due to the need for extensive organ resection and the limitations of functional reconstruction methods. In practice, decision-making support for treatment selection in older cancer patients, who tend to have many comorbidities and reduced ability for comprehension, remains inadequate. There is an urgent need for a training system to raise the standard of multidisciplinary teams playing a crucial role in decision-making, and for reimbursement to allocate the necessary resources. In the treatment of locally advanced oral cancer in the rapidly increasing number of vulnerable elderly patients, combined radiotherapy plus immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, or neoadjuvant chemotherapy/immunotherapy using biomarkers before limited surgery is expected to be developed to achieve both cure and functional maintenance.