This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Oncology  • Head & Neck Cancer  • Neoplasms of Head & Neck  • Salivary Gland Disorders  • Radiation Therapy  • Prognosis/ Outcomes  • Drug Therapy  • Drug Therapy, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Tawee Tanvetyanon, MD; Dahui Qin, MD, PhD; Tapan Padhya, MD; Judith McCaffrey, MD; Weiwei Zhu, MS; David Boulware, MS; Ronald DeConti, MD; Andy Trotti, MD

Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2009;135(7):687-692.

Objective  To investigate the potential value of postoperative concurrent chemoradiation among patients with high-risk salivary gland carcinomas.

Design  Case control study based on retrospective medical record review.

Setting  A tertiary care comprehensive cancer center.

Patients  A total of 24 patients, 12 with major salivary gland carcinoma who were treated with postoperative concurrent chemoradiotherapy from 1998 to 2007 (chemoradiation group), and a control group of 12 patients treated with postoperative radiation alone.

Main Outcome Measures  Overall survival, progression-free survival, toxic effects.

Results  All but 1 patient had stage III or IV disease; close or positive surgical margins were identified in 20 patients (83%). The median radiation dose was 63 Gy. In the chemoradiation group, platinum-based regimens were used in all. Treatment was well tolerated, but toxic effects, predominantly hematologic, were increased in the chemoradiation group. To date, 8 patients have died; the median overall survival was 53 months. The overall survival in the chemoradiation group was significantly better than in the radiation-alone group: 3-year survival rates were 83% and 44%, respectively (P = .05).

Conclusions  Locally advanced or high-grade salivary gland carcinomas follow an aggressive clinical course. Based on our limited experience, postoperative chemoradiation with a platinum-based regimen seems to be effective in selected patients and warrants further investigation.

Author Affiliations: Head and Neck Program (Drs Tanvetyanon, Qin, Padhya, McCaffrey, DeConti, and Trotti), Thoracic Program (Dr Tanvetyanon), and Biostatistic Core (Ms Zhu and Mr Boulware), H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?