[The effect of radio- and chemotherapy on survival in advanced head and neck tumors].

Inoperable cases of advanced squamous cell carcinomas in the head and neck area which have a very poor prognosis are often treated by a combined radio- and chemotherapy. Tumor remissions up to 70% are induced by both radiotherapy and chemotherapy alone; an increase of the survival time is not reported. The present randomized study investigates the efficacy of two therapy schemes, i.e. chemotherapy alone and chemotherapy combined with irradiation. Tumor remissions of 75% were achieved in 80 evaluable patients, the median remission period was four months and the median survival period eleven months. The survival curves do not show any dependence of the survial time on the size of tumor or metastases. Only responders had a significantly longer survival time than non-responders.