Hepatic arterial infusion of chemotherapy as an option in a multimodal treatment of metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the anus

Anal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is an infrequent malignancy mainly diagnosed at an early stage, and curative chemoradiotherapy is an effective treatment; therefore, metastatic disease is a rarity with 5% of patients initially metastatic and 10 –17% with distant metastases after standard chemoradiotherapy treatment [1–4]. However, incidence is increasing due to the rise of human papilloma virus (HPV) infections, and we may have to treat metastatic patients more often [4]. Current treatment for first-line metastatic SCC disease is syste mic chemotherapy as carboplatin-paclitaxel, cisplatin-5FU or modified docetaxel, cisplatin, 5FU (DCF), leading to relatively poor outcomes (median overall survival [OS] from 14 to 22 months) [5–7].
Source: European Journal of Cancer - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research