Chemotherapy of Oral Cancer

Oral cancer, the sixth most common cancer worldwide, remains the most prevalent. Despite recent advancements in surgery and radiotherapy, the overall cure rate is achieved in less than 50% of patients. In contrast to many other cancers, distant metastasis is rarely present at diagnosis, but due to improved local control, the incidence of systemic spread is rapidly increasing. Most combination radiation-chemotherapy regimens have been developed empirically by administering drugs that exhibited some activity against the targeted tumors, using a dosage and timing sequence known to be tolerable in a single-modality therapy setting. Likewise, adjuvant chemotherapy following surgical resection did not show a survival benefit.