Comparing Two Palliative Schemes of Radiotherapy for Head and Neck Cancer — COOPERATION  

Head and Neck Neoplasms Clinical Trial

Official title: Dutch Randomized Multicenter Trial COmparing twO PalliativE RAdiaTION Schemes for Incurable Head and Neck Cancer (COOPERATION)

Status Terminated

Clinical Trial Summary

RCT to compare two radiation schemes for palliative HeadNeck cancer

Clinical Trial Description

A substantial proportion of patients with head and neck (HNC) are not suitable for curative treatment with surgery and/or (chemo)radiotherapy (CRT) because of very advanced stage, significant comorbidities, bad general condition, distant metastasis, or a combination of these factors. Although radiotherapy (RT) is a commonly used option to achieve durable disease control and to alleviate troublesome symptoms, the data about the optimal radiation scheme and the impact of these schedules on quality of life (QoL) of these vulnerable patients is extremely scarce.

Although different radiation schemes are used worldwide (in the Netherlands, at least 15 different radiation schedules are used), it is currently not possible to identify the best RT scheme, based only on retrospective studies because of the major differences between these studies with regard to patient's demographics, radiation schedules given, the radiation technique used etc. Furthermore, no any information is available on the impact of these schemes on treatment-related toxicity and QoL.

This illustrates the urgent need for a multicenter randomized controlled trial (RCT) to identify the most optimal schemes of RT for this group of patients. Therefore, the investigators intend to initiate a prospective RCT comparing the survival, loco-regional control, toxicity, and QoL of two commonly used schemes. This study will be the first of his kind for palliative patients with HNC and will compare a short-course (6 fractions) with a long-course of radiotherapy (16 fractions). Because most of patients with incurable HNC have a poor performance status and major comorbidity and prefer limited number of visits to the hospital, it is quite reasonable to investigate whether a short scheme of radiotherapy with limited number of visits to the clinic as good as a relatively long-course of radiotherapy in terms of outcome, toxicity and QoL. This delicate balance between outcomes, possible toxicity and patient's comfort would justify the initiation of such randomized trial. The results of this study will in the nearby future enable us to indicate the radiation scheme best suits which patient category ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Head and Neck Neoplasms

• NCT number: NCT02421458
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: The Netherlands Cancer Institute
• Status: Terminated
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: November 2015
• Completion date: November 2018