Advancing Education, Research, and Quality of Care for the Head and Neck oncology patient.
Head & Neck Cancer Alliance, in collaboration with the American Head & Neck Society, is hosting a webinar August 19th, 2020, Wednesday at 4:30 PM EDT.
This webinar will include a 40-minute pre-recorded interview with the four survivor panelists and a 20-minute live Zoom Q & A. This session features experts in the field of head and neck cancer alongside cancer survivor speakers.
Dear AHNS Member,
The American Head and Neck Society (AHNS) strongly endorses the below statement from the American Colleges of Surgeons (ACS) regarding the recent violence and protests. Please join us in supporting the ACS and please stay safe and well. Thank you.
Cherie-Ann Nathan, MD
AHNS President
Recent events across the country have significantly impacted us all, particularly Fellows who are members of Black and Brown communities.
The ACS stands in solidarity against racism, violence, and intolerance. Our mission is to serve all with skill and fidelity, and that extends beyond the operating room.
Racism, brutal attacks, and subsequent violence must end. We will help any injured, and we will use our voice in support of the health and safety of every person.
Dear AHNS Members,
The AHNS Education Division has helped create a valuable resource for our members to connect during the pandemic. The AHNS COVID-19 Forum can be accessed through your member account on the AHNS Web Site. Just log onto your account through www.ahns.info and go to the member dashboard to access the AHNS COVID-19 Forum. This was established as a quick way for our members to post questions, comments and suggestions in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. This forum is only accessible to AHNS members. Posting in any forum subscribes you to that topic and you will receive email notifications of future posts. You may also subscribe to any topic or entire forums by locating the subscribe link. Clicking your name on any forum page will allow you to modify your personal settings for the forum system. Please note that the views and comments expressed on the forum are views and opinions of those posting and not official AHNS viewpoints.
Please also visit the AHNS COVID-19 Bulletin Board, which serves as a platform on our website where members can share vetted information relevant to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Please visit https://www.ahns.info/covid-19-info/ to view the bulletin board and also submit information. New information has been posted weekly.
And don’t forget to view one of the pieces that was added to the Bulletin Board, the AHNS COVID-19 Practice Patterns. A direct link can be found here:
https://www.ahns.info/covid-19-info/covid_pp_spreadsheet/
This document is created by a set of head and neck surgeons who will post regular and ‘real-time’ updates about practice patterns, policy changes, and patient care considerations. These will be updated on a weekly basis at minimum, and more frequently if policies and patterns are changing more rapidly.
In addition, aggregate information previously collected from other institutions will be available to view.
We welcome your contributions. We are actively looking for contributors, as well as ideas for additional questions our institutions can help answer. New questions will be added and answered as soon as possible.
Please send any interest or correspondence regarding AHNS COVID-19 Practice Patterns to
rusha.patel@gmail.com.
I continue to be amazed at the great work our members are producing during this difficult time.
Thank you, again, for your service to the society and our specialty!
Cherie-Ann Nathan, MD
AHNS President
The Head & Neck journal has a new special issue, COVID-19 versus Cancer: Impact on Head and Neck Oncology, to help head and neck oncologists all over the world in dealing with the pertinent issues surrounding the challenges they face during this pandemic. The issue is available for free full content download, globally using this link https://authorea.com/inst/20973
Dr. Ehab Hanna, the Editor in Chief, introduced the issue in his Editorial, How Fragile We Are, highlighting the impact on health care systems, cancer care, and education. The editorial also discussed the issues of routine testing prior to cancer care, and our collective response to this pandemic. You can read the Editorial by using this link https://authorea.com/users/5588/articles/441050-how-fragile-we-are?commit=23e42f11eac47d7863d8b36ff84b737ecf247c68
Sadeghi N, Khalife S, Mascarella MA, Ramanakumar AV, Richardson K, Joshi AS, Bouganim N, Taheri R, Fuson A, Siegel R.
From Head and Neck, March 2020;42(3):417-425.
Article Review by Joe Goodman, MD
Background / Hypothesis
According to the authors, a paradigm shift is underway leading to de-escalation trials for HPV-associated oropharynx cancer (OPC). Because of the excellent prognosis for most HPV OPC, efforts have been made to improve quality-of-life after treatment and reduce treatment-related morbidity. While most de-escalation trials have looked at reducing radiation dose or eliminating chemotherapy, this trial uses neoadjuvant chemo therapy plus transoral surgery (NAC+S) with the goal of avoiding post-op radiation based on surgical pathology.
Design
This is a prospective cohort of patients with p16+ OPC (stage III/IV AJCC 7th) treated with chemotherapy consisting of 3 cycles of cisplatin/docetaxel every 3 weeks followed by transoral surgery and neck dissection. N3 disease was excluded. All 54 patients demonstrated at least partial response to the chemotherapy regimen based on preoperative post-treatment imaging. Goal was to correlate reduction in tumor volume with likelihood of complete pathologic response pCR. Surgical pathology was assessed for presence of primary tumor and neck metastases to determine yTNM restaging and assess need for postoperative XRT. Partial response was defined as any residual tumor. MRI response of tumor was also correlated with pathological response, but not RECIST criteria because often pathological response was underpredicted by imaging response.
Summary of Results
Surgical pathology showed overall pCR of 44%, with 72% pCR at the primary and 57% pCR in the neck.
96% had negative margins. There were 3 mortalities. Preop imaging volume reduction of 90% or greater had predictive value for pCR (sensitivity 0.82 and specificity 0.73). More patients at all stages showed pCR than PR on surgical pathology although this was not specifically analyzed.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Key Points
From the Basic Science/Translational Section
Jeffrey C. Liu MD Vice Chair
Richard Wong Md Chair
