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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Feb 10, 2015; 6(1): 7-15
Published online Feb 10, 2015. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v6.i1.7
Published online Feb 10, 2015. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v6.i1.7
Optimal management of the elderly patient with head and neck cancer: Issues regarding surgery, irradiation and chemotherapy
Giannis Mountzios, Department of Medical Oncology, 251 Airforce General Hospital, 115 25 Athens, Greece
Author contributions: Mountzios G analyzed data and wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Giannis Mountzios, MD, MSc, PhD, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Department of Medical Oncology, 251 Airforce General Hospital, P. Kanellopoulou 3 Str, 115 25 Athens, Greece. gmountzios@gmail.com
Telephone: +30-69-83519989 Fax: +30-21-07715690
Received: November 12, 2013
Peer-review started: November 12, 2013
First decision: December 2, 2013
Revised: December 18, 2014
Accepted: December 29, 2014
Article in press: December 31, 2014
Published online: February 10, 2015
Processing time: 59 Days and 10.2 Hours
Peer-review started: November 12, 2013
First decision: December 2, 2013
Revised: December 18, 2014
Accepted: December 29, 2014
Article in press: December 31, 2014
Published online: February 10, 2015
Processing time: 59 Days and 10.2 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Elderly patients with head and neck cancer represent an increasing but frail patient group that require the implementation of multidisciplinary therapeutic approaches. Organ-sparing modern surgical techniques, sophisticated radiotherapy and novel chemotherapeutic and molecular targeted drug combinations enable delivery of optimal treatment in an effort to minimize toxicity without compromising efficacy.