Recombinant adenovirus-p53 enhances the therapeutic effect of surgery and chemoradiotherapy combination in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas patients

The purpose of our study was to assess the safety and efficacy of recombinant adenovirus-p53 (rAd-p53) combined with surgery and chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for patients with hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas (HPSCC). This study retrospectively and consecutively collected clinical data of 102 patients with primary HPSCC who were admitted to the Department of Otolaryngology of West China Hospital, Sichuan University in China between March 2010 and December 2015. A retrospective clinical study of 102 patients with HPSCC was carried out from March 2010 to December 2015. All patients were male and were divided into 3 groups based on the treatments they received, including Single Surgery, Surgery + CRT, and Surgery + CRT + rAd-p53. In the Surgery + CRT + rAd-p53 group, rAd-p53 was intratumorally injected on the 1st day preoperatively; peritumorally injected on the 7th day intraoperatively, and on the 21st, 28th, and 35th days postoperatively. Their clinical data were retrospectively collected and analyzed. In our study, for all 102 patients with HPSCC, 16 patients received Single Surgery, 44 patients received Surgery + CRT therapy, and 42 patients received Surgery + CRT + rAd-p53 therapy. In the Surgery + CRT + rAd-p53 group, all patients could tolerate rAd-p53 treatment and no serious side effect was observed. In addition, rAd-p53 application did not increase the side reactions caused by surgery and CRT. Compared with the 3-year overall survival rates of Single Surgery group and Surgery + CRT group, the 3-year overall survival rates of Surgery + CRT + rAd-p53 group was significantly enhanced (P < .05). Similar results were also observed for the 3-year disease-free survival rates. Our results indicate that rAd-p53 therapy may improve the therapeutic effect of patients with HPSCC, and is a safe and effective treatment method for patients with HPSCC. However, further prospective studies with larger sample sizes are needed to validate our findings.