Theory and practice of multi-disciplinary treatment for head and neck cancer

The main purpose of multi-disciplinary treatment is improvement of survival rate, reduction of side effects and functional preservation. There are two main modalities to practice combined therapy; serial and parallel. The effect of parallel combined therapy for maxillary cancer was analyzed by irradiation dose, anticancer drug and frequency of partial resection. The reduction of irradiation dose without complete resection of the tumor and frequent follow-up survey was very dangerous. Intra-arterial 5-fluorouracil infusion showed the best survival rate. The more partial resection showed the better survival rate. The recent 4 year survival rate by the parallel combined therapy was 60%. (author)