S-1 plus cisplatin: another option in the treatment of advanced head and neck cancer?

Abstract

Evaluation of: Fujii M, Tomita K, Nishijima W et al. Phase I/II study of S-1 plus cisplatin combination chemotherapy in patients with advanced/recurrent head and neck cancer. Jpn. J. Clin. Oncol. 40(3), 214–221 (2010).

A combination of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and cisplatin is the most commonly used chemotherapy regimen in patients with advanced head and neck cancer (HNC). Japanese investigators replaced 5-FU with the oral fluoropyrimidine S-1 (40 mg/m² twice daily on days 1–14 every 4 weeks) to treat patients with locally advanced, recurrent, or metastatic HNC; and determined that the dose of cisplatin on day 8 should be 70 mg/m². The authors also studied the efficacy and safety of this regimen in a continuing Phase II trial. Treatment with S-1 plus cisplatin resulted in a confirmed response rate of 44.1% and a median overall survival duration of 16.7 months. The most common grade 3 or 4 adverse events included anorexia (26.5%), nausea (14.7%), and neutropenia/thrombocytopenia (11.8%). Despite inclusion of patients heterogeneous in disease status and incomplete response evaluation, this study demonstrated that S-1 in combination with cisplatin is feasible for treatment of advanced/recurrent HNC.

Keywords::

• advanced head and neck cancer
• cisplatin
• Phase I
• Phase II
• S-1

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.