Klin Onkol 1999; 12(5): 153-155.
Summary: The prognosis of spinocellular carcinomas of Head and Neck is unfavourable, therefore multimodal oncological treatment, including neodjuvantr chemotherapy, has been applied. However, opinion on the applixcation of this therapeutical modality have been rather controversial. Although the general response to chemoinduction if often reported to be over 80%, statistical indicate only decreased incidence of metastases without any effects on the total survival and length of remission. Due to the fact that the present clinical practice has been using methods that are insufficiently accurate for assessing the therapeutical results (clinical examination, histological investigation) and a specific tumour marker for this locality has not been found so far, we intend to eva!uate the effectiveness of neoadjuvant chemotherapy by means of flow cytometric examination of the contents of DNA. Examination of DNA content of the cell population in the tumour before starting treatment (the first histological verification) and after performing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (per-operative histology) can be realised in clinical practice without loading a patient. This enables more accurate assessment of the effects of chemotherapy on the cell population in a tumour.
