Angiogenesis in Head and Neck Cancer: A Review of the Literature

Codecà Carla,Foa Paolo,Ferrari Daris,Broggio Francesca,Bertuzzi Cecilia,Crepaldi Francesca

doi:10.1155/2012/358472

Abstract

Angiogenesis is a necessary process for tumor growth, progression and diffusion. In the last years many efforts have been made to understand the mechanisms necessary to the formation of new vessels in tumor tissue and how to integrate these findings in the treatment of different type of cancer. Thanks to these studies there are today many anti-angiogenic drugs with established activity in cancer and approved in clinical practice. Head and neck cancer is a common tumor worldwide that often has advanced stage at diagnosis and poor prognosis. Angiogenesis has a well recognized role in head and neck cancer progression and resistance to drugs and radiotherapy and many clinical trials has been conducted with antiangiogenic agents in this disease, even if they often showed limited efficacy. In this review we summarize the main trials published about angiogenesis in head and neck cancer with particular attention to factors involved in this process and the available data on the efficacy of treatment with anti-angiogenic agents in this disease.

Highlights

Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer with 500.000 diagnosis per year worldwide [1]
In this review we summarize the main trials published about angiogenesis in head and neck cancer with particular attention to factors involved in this process and the available data on the efficacy of treatment with anti-angiogenic agents in this disease
This study demonstrates that bevacizumab 10 mg/kg every two weeks can be safely integrated to fluorouracil and hydroxyurea-based concomitant chemoradiotherapy: the rate of severe complication was similar to those reported in trials with different agents in cohorts of patients with the same characteristics [55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68]

Summary

Introduction

Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer with 500.000 diagnosis per year worldwide [1]. Patients with locally advanced disease have a chance of cure with multimodality treatments that involves surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and, in the last years, molecular targeted therapies [2]. Despite the advances in the treatment of locally advanced disease, more than 50% of patients will relapse. Combining surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy often leads to severe and permanent function deficits with a negative impact on patients’ quality of life. Patients with relapsed or metastatic disease have a worse prognosis with an overall survival of approximately 7–10 months [3]. New therapeutic protocols and agents should be developed to improve survival while limiting treatmentrelated toxicities

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Results

Conclusion