
"I am glad that taking part in a trial might help others on their own cancer journey.”
This trial compared surgery to remove lymph nodes in squamous cell cancers of the head and neck with a ‘watch and wait’ policy using PET-CT scanning.
is the usual treatment for
cancer of the head and neck that has spread to the lymph nodes. This is usually followed by surgery to remove remaining cancer cells in the
in the neck. This is called a neck dissection.
Some people don’t have any cancer in their lymph nodes after chemoradiation and don’t need surgery. But when this trial was done, there was no reliable way to identify which people still had remaining cancer cells. Doctors thought a new type of scanner called a PET-CT could help to see if there were any cancer cells in the lymph nodes.
The aims of the trial were to
The trial team found that PET-CT scanning was very useful. It can prevent unnecessary operations and better target areas of cancer in the small number of people who do need surgery.
564 people took part. After chemoradiation, they were put into 1 of 2 treatment groups at random
The trial team looked at who had surgery. This was
They compared
They found there was no difference between the 2 different groups in either of these.
The researchers concluded that
We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists () and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.
Please note: In order to join a trial you will need to discuss it with your doctor, unless otherwise specified.
Professor Hisham Mehanna
Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC)
NIHR Clinical Research Network: Cancer
NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire
University of Warwick
Freephone 0808 800 4040
"I am glad that taking part in a trial might help others on their own cancer journey.”