Active clinical trials for "Head and Neck Neoplasms"

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a progressive therapeutic exercise program on specific physical and functional deficits in the neck and shoulder region occurring as a result of head and neck cancer treatment.

Purpose of this study: There is some evidence that the best treatment for head and neck cancer involves a combination of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Radiation therapy is a form of cancer treatment using high energy x-rays. Chemotherapy is a form of cancer treatment that uses special medications. This study uses two chemotherapy drugs (Taxol and Carboplatin), which are FDA approved for treating head and neck cancers. This treatment combination has been associated with difficulty, pain, or a burning sensation upon swallowing (called esophagitis), and decrease in blood cells (cells in the blood which fight against infection). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the addition of another drug, Amifostine, can reduce the side effects of current combination treatment (radiation and chemotherapy which is standard of care). The addition of Amifostine is the investigational part of the study. The research study is also looking at the side effects of Amifostine and cancer's growth response to this combination treatment.

The purpose of this study will be to determine the safety and tolerability of intratumoral M4N. Patients suffering from cancer of the head and neck that is recurrent after primary treatment with surgery, radiation therapy, and/or chemotherapy may be eligible. The design is a Phase 1 dose escalation study of M4N administered intratumorally once weekly, initially for three weeks. Dose will be escalated on the starting schedule to a target of 20 mg/cm3 tumor volume and then, new patient cohorts will have their schedule extended to weekly M4N for 4 weeks. Dose escalation will continue, assuming tolerability, so that cohorts will be treated for 6 weeks, and finally, 8 weeks.

RATIONALE: Chemoprevention therapy is the use of certain drugs to try to prevent the development or recurrence of cancer. The use of celecoxib may be an effective way to prevent the recurrence of stage I or stage II head and neck cancer or stage I non-small cell lung cancer. PURPOSE: This randomized phase II trial is studying celecoxib to see how well it works compared to that of a placebo in preventing disease recurrence in patients with stage I or stage II head and neck cancer or stage I non-small cell lung cancer.

Radiotherapy (RT) with concurrent chemotherapy represents the state of the art in curative intent treatment for locally advanced squamous carcinoma of the head and neck. Tumor hypoxia and high levels of angiogenesis (blood vessel formation) are associated with treatment failure. Preclinical models reveal that radiotherapy itself may induce tumor secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Curability may consequently be reduced by multiple mechanisms. Over-expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) also occurs commonly and increases the risk of treatment failure. The addition of EGFR blockade to RT alone increases the chance of a cure. Concurrent VEGF and EGFR blockade could be synergistic with one another and improve the effectiveness of concurrent chemoradiation for advanced head and neck cancer. This study will add angiogenic and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) blockade into an established program of curative intent concurrent chemoradiation for locally advanced head and neck cancer. The safety and effectiveness of delivering the drugs bevacizumab and Tarceva in conjunction with twice daily irradiation and concurrent cisplatin (CDDP) chemotherapy will be determined.

The purpose of this study is to assess whether Biotene oral care products have a benefit in the treatment of xerostomia and mucositis when compared with conventional bicarbonate mouth care regimes.

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is an experimental radiation therapy technique which is based on the principle of irradiating boron atoms with neutrons. When neutrons have relatively low energy, boron atoms that have been targeted to cancerous tissue using a suitable boron carrier (an amino acid derivative called BPA, boronophenylalanine) will capture the neutrons. As a result from the neutron capture the boron atoms will split into two, producing helium and lithium ions. The helium and lithium ions, in turn, have only a short pathlength in tissue (about 5 micrometers) and will deposit their cell damaging effect mainly within the tumor provided that the boron carrier (BPA) has accumulated in the tumor. In practice, the study participants will receive BPA as an approximately 2-hour intravenous infusion, following which the tumor is irradiated with low energy (epithermal) neutrons obtained from a nuclear reactor at the BNCT facility. BNCT requires careful radiation dose planning, but neutron irradiation will last approximately only for one hour. In this study BNCT will be repeated, and the 2 treatments will be given 3 to 5 weeks apart. The study hypothesis is that head and neck cancers that have recurred following conventional radiotherapy might accumulate the boron carrier compound, and might respond to BNCT.

Lapatinib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for their growth. This phase II trial is studying how well lapatinib works in treating patients with recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck cancer.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine and paclitaxel, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving gemcitabine together with paclitaxel may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving gemcitabine together with paclitaxel works in treating patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic head and neck cancer.

The purpose of this trial is to determine the safety of zalutumumab as a treatment for head and neck cancer.