First-year quality of life assessment of an intra-arterial (RADPLAT) versus intravenous chemoradiation phase III trial

Background. We report the results of a multicenter randomized phase III study, assessing quality of life (QOL) in intra‐arterial (IA) versus standard intravenous (IV) chemoradiation in advanced head and neck cancer. Methods. Two hundred seven patients with inoperable stage IV disease—152 men and 55 women; mean age, 55 years—were included in this study. The patients were treated with standard radiotherapy with 4 weekly IA or 3 weekly IV cisplatin infusions. The QOL assessments carried out were EORTC‐C30, H&N35, and trial‐specific questionnaires. Results. Overall QOL deteriorated in all patients during treatment, is gradually improving over 1 year. IA patients showed significantly less nausea and vomiting at week 7 (p