A trial of TPF chemotherapy before surgery and radiotherapy for locally advanced head and neck cancer (TITAN)

This trial looked at chemotherapy before surgery and radiotherapy for people who have squamous cell cancer of the head and neck. This includes cancer that started in the mouth, nose, sinuses, throat or voice box (larynx). This trial was supported by Cancer Research UK.

If you have head and neck cancer that has grown into surrounding body tissues (locally advanced cancer ), you usually have surgery followed by either radiotherapy or a combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy (chemoradiation ). This is standard treatment .

But sometimes the cancer will come back and doctors are looking for ways to improve treatment. In this trial, they looked at chemotherapy before surgery. This is called induction chemotherapy. It is a combination of 3 drugs called docetaxel, cisplatin and fluorouracil. This combination of drugs is also known as TPF. We have information about TPF.

We know from research that TPF can shrink head and neck cancers. But we don’t know if having this type of chemotherapy before surgery makes a difference to the long term outcome.

The aim of the trial was to see if having induction chemotherapy before standard treatment helped people with locally advanced squamous cell cancer of the head and neck.