Background: To compare the rate of postoperative complications of patients with advanced head and neck cancer treated with the chemoradiation protocol "RADPLAT" with that of a similar cohort of patients treated with primary surgery.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 50 patients treated with RADPLAT and 50 patients treated with primary surgery.
Results: The rates of complications for local wound problems were 54% and 42%, respectively, for the RADPLAT cohort and the primary surgery cohort. However, the rate of local complications for the subset of RADPLAT patients undergoing clean-contaminated surgery was 69% (p =.305). The rates of complications for medical (systemic) problems were 10% and 12%, respectively, for RADPLAT versus primary surgery patients. There was no significant difference in hospitalization time between the groups.
Conclusions: Among patients with advanced head and neck cancer, surgical complications are high but not significantly different between patients undergoing the chemoradiation protocol "RADPLAT" and those undergoing primary surgery.
Copyright 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 26: 272-277, 2004