Outcome of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy on Local Recurrence and Distant Metastasis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Retrospective Study

Statement of the Problem: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCH) is controversial in the treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).
The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of NCH on OSCC prognosis.
In this retrospective cohort study, 94 patients were studied in two groups. The patients in group 1 received NCH before the surgery, and those in group 2 underwent resection without any chemotherapy prior to surgery. The employed NCH agents consisted of cisplatin in combination with 5-fluorouracil in two treatment courses. Tumor size, lymph node involvement, age, and follow-up time were considered as variable factors of the study. Local recurrence (LR) and distant metastasis (DM) were outcomes of the study.
Comparison of LR and DM in various tumor sizes demonstrated no significant difference between the two groups (p> 0.05). Analysis of the data did not show any statistically significant difference between the groups for LR in subjects with N0, N1 and N2. Each one-year increase in age was associated with 10% increase in the hazard ratio (HR) (HR distance metastasis Y/N = 1.10, p= 0.05). In the same analysis, when considering LR as a dependent factor, LR risk in N2 was 3 times more than in N1 (p= 0.02). LR risk in N3 was 5 times more than in N1 [HR local recurrence (p= 0.006).
Based on our results, neoadjuvant chemotherapy with combination of cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil may not improve prognosis of OSCC. However, further studies are suggested to assess other neoadjuvant chemotherapy protocols in OSCC patients.