Abstract

Locoregionally recurrent head and neck cancer remains a therapeutic challenge for all domains of oncology ; surgical, radiation and medical . The recurrence rates of patients treated with surgery and post op chemoradiation range from 17-52% with similar rates in patients treated with definitive chemoradiation. The treatment for resectable disease is surgery providing long term control rates as high as 45% .However in patients who are operated for recurrent disease further recurrence rates are as high as 60 % from some institutional series. Reirradiation with or without concurrent chemotherapy plays an important role in this setting as well as in patients who are inoperable at presentation. SBRT is an emerging modality of reirradiation that is associated with equal control rates compared to conventionally fractionated reirradiation with lesser toxicities. There is however a need for further elucidation of optimal patient selection criteria as well as an understanding of the need of the higher technical demands of the technique.