Assessing cumulative acute toxicity of chemoradiotherapy in head and neck cancer with or without induction chemotherapy

Abstract Background To compare cumulative acute toxicity in head and neck cancer patients treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy alone (CCRT) versus induction chemotherapy (IC) followed by CCRT (I/CCRT). Methods 77 patients underwent definitive CCRT (30 I/CCRT and 47 CCRT). Toxicity was graded using the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events version 4.0. Using the TAME adverse event reporting system, short-term toxicity (T) scores were generated for IC (T IC ), CCRT (T CCRT ), total treatment duration (T Rx ), post-treatment period (T PT ) and an overall score (T overall ) from treatment start to post treatment period. Results Acute toxicity other than dysphagia, odynophagia, or dermatitis was reported in 90.0% and 66.0% of I/CCRT and CCRT patients, respectively ( P  = 0.02). Compared to CCRT group, I/CCRT patients reported greater mean T Rx (T Rx : 2.11 vs. 2.87, P  = 0.01) and T overall (T overall : 2.60 vs. 3.70, P  = 0.003). Conclusion I/CCRT patients reported more cumulative acute toxicity during treatment compared to CCRT patients using the TAME reporting system.