Active clinical trials for "Head and Neck Neoplasms"

The goal of this study is to measure the effect of radiation therapy on the activity levels of patients. This will be achieved by tracking their activity levels during a treatment course of radiation therapy.

People receiving a head and neck cancer treatment often do not find an adequate therapeutic response for the side effects derived from this treatment. The objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a physical recovery program based on manual therapy over these problems. Previous studies have shown the effectiveness of this type of programs on patients who have had cancer in other locations with clinically relevant results. There is a shortage of proposals for this subgroup of patients that require special attention. This project intends to carry out an experimental randomized controlled study with 84 patients treated of head and neck cancer who will be assigned randomly to the study groups: a) manual therapy program or, b) control group. The assessment refers to a baseline form (at the beginning of the study), at 6 weeks and at 6 months of patient follow-up.

Concurrent chemotherapy and radiation therapy (chemoRT) has become the standard of care for treatment of many patients with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), though many clinical questions remain. Prior experience has revealed locoregional control (LRC), disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) at 3 years exceeding 80% after treatment with the use of hyperfractionated intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and concurrent weekly cisplatin chemotherapy for patients with locally advanced HNSCC. This multi-institutional phase II ZCC00204 trial resulted in an acceptable quality of life (QOL) and toxicity profile. The current trial is an attempt to maintain high LRC, while further minimizing both acute and chronic toxicities, and maximizing QOL.

The therapy of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer will be adjusted to the grade of skin rush as recorded after the first two cycles of Cetuximab and Cisplatin, i.e. either with radioimmunotherapy (radiotherapy and Cetuximab) or radiochemotherapy (radiotherapy and Cisplatin.

PRIMARY AIM Determine the feasibility of providing true and sham acupuncture treatment to patients at Fudan University Cancer Hospital (Cancer Hospital) who are receiving radiation treatment for cancer of the head and/or neck area. SECONDARY AIMS Determine if true acupuncture is more effective than sham acupuncture for preventing radiation-induced xerostomia among cancer patients at Cancer Hospital. Determine if true acupuncture is more effective than sham acupuncture for reducing the severity of radiation-induced xerostomia.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as docetaxel, S-1, and cisplatin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells. Giving more than one drug (combination chemotherapy) together with radiation therapy may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving docetaxel and S-1 together with radiation therapy and low-dose cisplatin works in treating patients with stage III or stage IV head and neck cancer.

RATIONALE: Celecoxib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth and by blocking blood flow to the tumor. Giving celecoxib before surgery may reduce the amount of normal tissue that needs to be removed. Collecting and storing samples of tumor tissue, blood, and urine from patients with head and neck cancer to study in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about the cancer and predict how well patients will respond to treatment with celecoxib. PURPOSE: This phase I/II trial is studying changes in tumor cells and how well celecoxib works in treating patients with head and neck cancer that can be removed by surgery.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as S-1 and tegafur-uracil, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving S-1 or tegafur-uracil after surgery, chemotherapy, biological therapy, and/or radiation therapy may kill any remaining tumor cells. It is not yet known whether S-1 is more effective than tegafur-uracil in treating head and neck cancer. PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying S-1 to see how well it works compared with tegafur-uracil in treating patients with previously treated stage III or stage IV head and neck cancer.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Giving more than one drug and giving the drugs in different ways may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of cisplatin-epinephrine injectable gel plus paclitaxel and carboplatin in treating patients who have recurrent head and neck cancer.

RATIONALE: Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. It is not yet known whether radiation therapy alone is more effective than radiation therapy plus chemotherapy in treating cancer of the nasopharynx. PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying how well radiation therapy and chemotherapy works compared to radiation therapy alone in treating patients with previously untreated cancer of the nasopharynx.