TREATMENT OF HEAD AND NECK CANCERS WITH BRMS - PROLONGATION OF SURVIVAL

It has been reported that immunologic function is deteriorated in head and neck cancer patients by primary therapies such as surgery, irradi ation and chemotherapy or tumor itself. As previously described by us, immunologic dysfunction in such patients may be recovered by treatmen t with BRMs. In the present study, we investigated the effects of BRMs on survival of patients who had primarily been treated in our clinic. Fifty-one patients (23 patients; Stage I or Stage II, 28 patients; St age III or Stage IV) were treated with BRMs (BRM group), and 49 patien ts (22 patients; Stage I or Stage II, 27 patients; Stage III or Stage IV) were employed as controls (Control group). The results obtained we re as follows: (1) In patients of all Stages, the survival period was significantly (p<0.05) longer in BRM group than in Control group; (2) The survival periods of patients of Stage I or Stage II were not diffe rent between the groups; and (3) The survival period of BRM group was significantly (p<0.05) longer than that of Control group in patients o f Stage III or Stage IV. There were observed more patients in BRM grou p who survived for a prolonged period. These results suggest that BRMs may be useful for recovering immunologic function in head and neck ca ncer patients particularly of Stage III or Stage TV who usually receiv e multimodality therapy.