Evaluation of Neo-Adjuvant, Concurrent and Adjuvant Chemotherapy in the Treatment of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Meta-Analysis

Objective: squamous cell carcinoma (scc) is the most common malignancy of the oral cavity. this study aims to evaluate different treatment procedures includ-ing neo-adjuvant, concurrent and adjuvant therapy in treating squamous cell car-cinoma of the head and neck by a meta-analysis.materials and methods: the authors searched all electronic databases (medline, embase and cochrane) for all the articles published from 1970 to january 2011. data of the evaluated treatment procedures (chemotherapy or radiotherapy), num-ber of patients, publishing date and the authors’ names have all been extracted from the articles and have been categorized in a table.results: forty-six researches are included in this study. all three ways show that using chemotherapy after or with radiotherapy improves the vitality rate signifi-cantly (p-value< 0.01).conclusion: it is concluded that after deciding not to perform a surgery for treat-ing scc, the recommended treatment plan is chemotherapy and radiotherapy si-multaneously.