Primary Chemoradiation
  1. Fundamental Principle is that all patients who are surgical candidates should undergo primary surgical resection as outlined above.
  2. p16 Positive Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oropharynx
The recommendation is to proceed with standard cisplatin-based chemoradiation with the caveat that there should be shared informed decision-making between the clinician and the patient of the risks versus the benefits of adding cytotoxic chemotherapy to the treatment regimen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
p16 Negative Squamous Cell Carcinoma
The recommendation is to consider systemic-therapy sensitized radiation. Registry data indicate that cetuximab is inferior to cisplatin regardless of primary site, but this needs to be weighed against the desire to minimize the immunosuppression associated with cytotoxic chemotherapy.19 There should thus be shared informed decision-making between the clinician and the patient of the risks versus the benefits of substituting cetuximab for cisplatin in the treatment regimen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  1. When Possible Avoid : TPF (docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil) regimens for induction therapy, as they are associated with high rates of neutropenic fever and subsequent hospitalization.
  2. When Possible Avoid : For chemoradiation patients, try to avoid high-dose cisplatin, which can result in higher rates of hospitalization and renal dysfunction. Instead, substitute weekly cisplatin at 40 mg/m2.20