Purpose: To confirm the advantage of chemoradiotherapy using intra-arterial docetaxel with intravenous cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil.
Patients and methods: A total of 26 oropharyngeal cancer patients (1, 2, 2, and 21 patients had Stage I, II, III, and IVa-IVc, respectively) were treated with two sessions of this chemoradiotherapy regimen. External beam radiotherapy was delivered using large portals that included the primary site and the regional lymph nodes initially (range, 40-41.4 Gy) and the metastatic lymph nodes later (60 or 72 Gy). All tumor-supplying branches of the carotid arteries were cannulated, and 40 mg/m(2) docetaxel was individually infused on Day 1. The other systemic chemotherapy agents included 60 mg/m(2) cisplatin on Day 2 and 500 mg/m(2) 5-fluorouracil on Days 2-6.
Results: The primary response of the tumor was complete in 21 (81%), partial in 4 (15%), and progressive in 1 patient. Grade 4 mucositis, leukopenia, and dermatitis was observed in 3, 2, and 1 patients, respectively. During a median follow-up of 10 months, the disease recurred at the primary site and at a distant organ in 2 (8%) and 3 (12%) patients, respectively. Three patients died because of cancer progression. Two patients (8%) with a partial response were compromised by lethal bleeding from the tumor bed or chemotherapeutic toxicity. The 3-year locoregional control rate and the 3-year overall survival rate was 73% and 77%, respectively.
Conclusion: This method resulted in an excellent primary tumor response rate (96%) and moderate acute toxicity. Additional follow-up is required to ascertain the usefulness of this modality.