Abstract
Systemic chemotherapy is generally acccepted as standard palliative treatment for patients with locally recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) who are no longer amenable to surgery or radiotherapy. The standard treatment for patients with SCCHN is presently cisplatin-based combination therapy with 5-fluorouracil (5FU), which has achieved a high response rate. However, for patients with recurrent SCCHN who have already been treated with platinum and 5FU, second-line combination chemotherapy has not commonly been used. We treated 6 patients with recurrent SCCHN using docetaxel-based combination therapy. This therapy facilitated outpatient administration. The adverse effects were tolerable and 1 CR, 3 PR and 2 PD were achieved.
