View clinical trials related to Head and Neck Cancer.
Filter by:Cancer survivorship has dramatically improved within the last four decades and a greater number of Americans are living after cancer diagnosis. An increase in the number of survivors has highlighted the need to investigate the quality of life experienced by these survivors. While Survivorship research has improved our understanding of the challenges faced by some cancer survivors, there is a paucity of research on the functional and cognitive health status of head and neck cancer survivors. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the functional and cognitive changes that occur in head and neck cancer patients as a result of cancer treatment, in an attempt to increase our understanding of the complex interactions between cancer treatment, comorbid health ailments and quality of life.
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) with fluorine-18 fluoromisonidazole (FMISO) has been used for several years as a non invasive imaging technique to study tumor hypoxia. Several experimental and clinical studies have indicated that FMISO uptake of tissues is correlated with tissue oxygen tension and that FMSO PET allows non-invasive differentiation between hypoxic and normoxic tumors. Currently, FMISO-PET represents the best characterized and validated noninvasive hypoxia imaging technique. Nevertheless, clinical studies have also shown the limitations of FMISO PET. Accumulation of FMISO in hypoxic tumors is relatively low, resulting in a low contrast between hypoxic tumors and surrounding normal tissues. In addition, imaging needs to be started relatively late after tracer injection (about 3 hours post-injection), when a significant percentage of the fluorine-18 label has already decayed and the count statistics of the PET images are relatively low. Because of these limitations, FMISO PET is still only used at a few research centers, despite high clinical interest in hypoxia imaging.
RATIONALE: Studying samples of blood and tumor tissue from patients with cancer in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about changes that occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to cancer. It may also help doctors understand how patients respond to treatment. PURPOSE: This research study is studying biomarkers of response in blood and tumor tissue samples from patients with unresectable stage IV squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck previously treated with cetuximab, cisplatin, and radiation therapy.
RATIONALE: Studying samples of tissue from patients with cancer in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about changes that occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to cancer. PURPOSE: This research study is studying biomarkers in tissue samples from patients with recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell cancer of the head and neck previously treated with cisplatin with or without cetuximab.
This protocol was opened to collect long term survival information on subjects enrolled in a previous study which evaluated the impact of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and concomitant chemoradiotherapy with organ preserving optional surgery on overall survival, time to progression, pattern of disease recurrence in patient with locally advanced head and neck cancer. The last surviving subject was last treated in 1989, and was lost to follow up in 2010.
The purpose of this study is to explore the activity of ZD1839 added to concurrent chemoradiotherapy and as adjuvant monotherapy in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer. Activity is described in terms of response rate (complete responses only).
The purpose of this study is to find out what effects (good and bad) ZD1839 has on one's squamous cell head and neck cancer. The research is being done because currently no effective treatment exists for metastatic (spread of cancer cells from one area of the body to another) or recurrent squamous cell cancer of the head and neck. The purpose of this study is to find out if ZD1839 can shrink tumors or cause tumors to stop growing for a period of time.
This trial is for patients with colon cancer, head and neck cancer and lung cancer that has not responded to standard therapy. Cetuximab targets a receptor on cancer cells called the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor or EGFR. It is thought that this receptor is turned "on" in some cancers, enabling cancer cells to divide and grow. Blocking this receptor can turn this signal off. Cetuximab blocks this receptor from the outside of cancer cells. It is thought that cancer cells can turn this signal back on by the EGFR joining with a related receptor called ErbB2. Lapatinib blocks both EGFR and ErbB2 from the inside of cancer cells. In laboratory experiments it has been found that combining drugs that target both EGFR and ErbB2 might work better in turning this signal back off. The purpose of this study is to determine the maximum dosages that patients can tolerate when these two medicines are given at the same time. In addition, in order to be on this trial, patients must agree to have a tumor biopsy before starting treatment on this study and 21 days after starting treatment. These biopsies are a required part of the study. Patients must also agree to have blood drawn for research testing to see whether genetic differences between patients explain different reactions to and side effects from, these medicines.
The purpose of this study is to find out if the experimental drug pralatrexate with the vitamins folic acid and vitamin B12 might be an effective treatment for head and neck cancer. The reason we are doing this study is because another drug called methotrexate has been used for a long time to treat head and neck cancer patients. Pralatrexate was designed by scientists to be a new drug that works better than methotrexate. Laboratory studies have shown that pralatrexate works better than methotrexate at killing cancer cells. Pralatrexate has already been studied in patients with other types of cancers, such as lymphoma and lung cancer. The results from those studies were promising. Pralatrexate was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a new treatment for a cancer called peripheral T cell lymphoma.
This is a boron neutron capture (BNCT) therapy for patients with previously irradiated and locally recurrent head and neck cancer. The primary end points are treatment toxicities and response rate. The secondary endpoints are time to tumor progression, progression-free survival, overall survival and change quality of life. Head and neck carcinomas that recur locally after conventional irradiation pose a therapeutic challenge. Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is based on the nuclear capture reaction that occurs when non-radioactive boron is irradiated with neutrons of thermal energy to yield high energy alpha particles and recoiling lithium nuclei. The effect of alpha and 7Li is primarily limited to boron- containing cells. Preferential uptake of boron into cancerous tissue is achieved using boron carriers such as a derivative of phenylalanine, boronophenylalanine (BPA). After administration of BPA by an intra-arterial or intravenous infusion, the tumor site is irradiated with neutrons, the source of which is currently a nuclear reactor. A few uncontrolled clinical trials have evaluated BNCT in the treatment of glioblastoma after brain surgery. In these studies, the median survival times have been 13-15 months after BNCT. However, efficacy and tolerability of BNCT in the treatment of limited number of head and neck cancer patients showed promising results. Though many basic researches about BNCT has been done using Tsing Hua Open-pool Reactor (THOR) at National Tsing Hua University, no clinical trial utilizing BNCT is performed in our country. This study will be the first BNCT trial to treat head and neck cancer in Taiwan.