Program Information

Why Is the Survival Rate Low in Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma?

Z Huang

Z Huang¹*, T Liu ², Y Feng ¹, K Rasmussen ¹, J Rice ¹, S Stephenson ¹, Maria C Ferreira¹, K Yuh³, R Wang ⁴, S Lo ⁵, J Grecula ⁴, N Mayr⁶, W Yuh⁶, ¹ East Carolina University, Greenville, NC; ² Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX; ³ California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA ⁴ Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH; ⁵ The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; ⁶ University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Presentations

SU-E-T-352 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit Hall

Purpose:
Tumors are composed of a large number of clonogens that have the capability of indefinite reproduction. Even when there is complete clinical or radiographic regression of the gross tumor mass after treatment, tumor recurrence can occur if the clonogens are not completely eradicated by radiotherapy. This study was to investigate the colonogen number and its association with the tumor control probability (TCP) in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCCA).

Methods:
A literature search was conducted to collect clinical information of patients with OSCCA, including the prescription dose, tumor volume and survival rate. The linear-quadratic (LQ) model was incorporated into TCP model for clinical data analysis. The total dose ranged from 60 to 70 Gy and tumor volume ranged from 10 to 50 cc. The TCP was calculated for each group according to tumor size and dose. The least χ² method was used to fit the TCP calculation to clinical data while other LQ model parameters (α, β) were adopted from the literature, due to the limited patient data.

Results:
A total of 190 patients with T2-T4 OSCCA were included. The association with HPV was not available for all the patients. The 3-year survival rate was about 82% for T2 squamous cell carcinoma and 40% for advanced tumors. Fitting the TCP model to the survival data, the average clonogen number was 1.56x10¹². For the prescription dose of 70 Gy, the calculated TCP ranged from 40% to 90% when the tumor volume varied from 10 to 50 cc.

Conclusion:
Our data suggests variation between the clonogen number and TCP in OSCCA. Tumors with larger colonogen number tend to have lower TCP and therefore dose escalation above 70 Gy may be indicated in order to improve the TCP and survival rate. Our result will require future confirmation with a large number of patients.


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