Active clinical trials for "Head and Neck Neoplasms"

RATIONALE: Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Epoetin alfa may stimulate red blood cell production and treat anemia in patients with head and neck cancer. It is not yet known whether receiving radiation therapy with epoetin alfa is more effective than radiation therapy alone in treating anemic patients with head and neck cancer. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of radiation therapy with or without epoetin alfa in treating anemic patients who have head and neck cancer.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Colony-stimulating factors such as filgrastim may increase the number of immune cells found in bone marrow or peripheral blood and may help a person's immune system recover from the side effects of chemotherapy. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of paclitaxel, cisplatin, and filgrastim combined with radiation therapy in treating patients who have locally recurrent head and neck cancer and have received previous treatment with radiation therapy.

RATIONALE: EF5 may detect the presence of oxygen in tumor cells and help plan effective cancer treatment. PURPOSE: Phase I trial to study the effectiveness of EF5 in detecting the presence of oxygen in tumor cells of patients who are undergoing surgery or biopsy for breast, prostate, or cervical cancer or high grade soft tissue sarcoma.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Combining more than one drug and combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy may kill more tumor cells. It is not yet known which regimen of combination chemotherapy is more effective for advanced head and neck cancer. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of two regimens of combination chemotherapy plus radiation therapy in treating patients who have advanced head and neck cancer.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. PURPOSE: Phase I/II trial to study the effectiveness of oblimersen in treating patients who have solid tumors that have not responded to previous therapy.

RATIONALE: 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 methotrexate or paclitaxel is more effective in treating patients with advanced head and neck cancer. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of methotrexate with that of paclitaxel in treating patients who have advanced head and neck cancer that cannot be treated with cisplatin.

The main aim of this study was to evaluate clinically the effect of a combination between oral vitamin D and oral zinc in comparison to conventional therapy in prevention of radiotherapy-induced oral mucositis in Assiut University Hospitals.

Sixty percent of newly diagnosed head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are at a locally advanced (LA) stage. Depending on tumor site, stage, and resectability, locoregional failure rates can range from 35% to 65%. The persistence of residual disease at the end of treatment is a major prognostic element but is not always reliably assessed by current imaging techniques. Up to 40-50% of patients have residual adenomegaly and only 30% have viable disease when further adenectomy is performed. Sensitive and reproducible detection of residual disease after treatment is a major challenge in this patient category. 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT) guided surveillance, with a negative predictive value of 95-97%, has proven to be non-inferior to cervical curage in HNSCCs with residual adenomegaly. Cervical curage is now indicated only if the response assessed by PET-CT is incomplete. Nevertheless, the ability of PET-CT to predict treatment failure is unsatisfactory due to a high frequency of false positives, because of inflammatory changes, with a positive predictive value of about 20-50%. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) may provide a more reliable assessment of response to potentiated radiotherapy. Liquid biopsy monitoring of response in patients treated with potentiated radiation therapy for locally advanced HNSCCs a has been shown to be feasible. In 85% of patients, ctDNA is detectable and correlates significantly with tumor volume and response to treatment. In addition, one study showed that post-radiotherapy analysis of circulating HPV16 viral DNA (cvDNA) in patients with HPV16-related HNSCCs complemented PET-CT and helped guide management decisions. HPV16 cvDNA and PET-CT have similar negative predictive values, whereas the positive predictive value is higher for HPV16 cvDNA (100% versus 50%). Nevertheless, current data are insufficient to allow routine use of this marker. This is a multicenter, single arm, open study for patients with a locally advanced head and neck cancer for which a potentiated radiotherapy is indicated.

The investigators aim at investigating in a prospective clinical trial whether using a Simoultaneous Integrated Boost of carbon ions treatment planning approach, improving the tumor dose conformation while lowering the unintended dose to the low-risk volume, can significantly reduce the probability of toxicity without affecting Local Control.

The purpose of this study is to gain initial experience imaging HNC patient using a new PET camera, a 1mm spacial resolution. The goal is to understand image quality of the system and to see how it works in a clinical environment.