ASTRO: Targeted radiation, chemotherapy less toxic for HNC

Patients with recurring head and neck cancer (HNC) who have previously received radiation treatment can be treated more quickly, safely, and with fewer side effects with high doses of targeted radiation known as stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), combined with drugs that target cancerous tumors, according to research presented September 17 at the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) meeting in San Francisco.

This therapy uses concentrated radiation beams in high doses to destroy tumors in difficult or hard-to-reach areas, according to an ASTRO press release. The treatment is noninvasive, which minimizes damage to surrounding healthy tissue and organs. Researchers with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) CancerCenter and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), used SBRT in combination with the drug cetuximab for patients who had a recurrence of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck after going through radiation.

"The prognosis for patients who have a recurrence of head and neck cancer that cannot be surgically removed is already poor. Traditional treatments can be associated with significant side effects so severe that patients give up on the therapy altogether," stated Dwight Heron, MD, vice chairman of radiation oncology at UPCI and director of radiation oncology services at UPMC CancerCenter, said in the release. "By taking these patients through an abbreviated course of targeted drug and SBRT, we minimize the side effects of treatment."

Doctors treated 48 patients with the combination therapy between July 2007 and March 2013. All patients were able to complete the treatments, which were administered in a span of about two weeks compared with traditional therapies, which can take up to nine weeks. Severe toxicity was reported at 12% using the combination therapy, compared with more than 85% using conventional therapies.

"The good news here is that we improved their quality of life and did it safely," said study author John Vargo, MD, a radiation oncology resident at UPMC CancerCenter. "Unfortunately, outcomes using this approach are still challenging, so the next part of our research will concentrate on continuing to find ways to improve outcomes by integrating additional novel systemic agents."