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). PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of NCH on OSCC prognosis. MATERIALS AND METHOD: 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. RESULTS: 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). CONCLUSION: 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.