Injectable modalities as local and regional strategies for head and neck cancer

New approaches to the treatment of head and neck cancer involve delivery of the therapeutic agent by direct injection into the tumor lesions. This locoregional therapy allows adaptation of conventional chemotherapy agents, such as bleomycin and cisplatin, to achieve higher drug concentrations in the tumor while avoiding severe systemic toxicities. Novel therapies administered through tumor injection, such as gene transfer, photosensitization, and biologic response modification, have been investigated in preclinical studies and are currently in different phases of clinical trial.