A major clinical trial confirms the value of giving carboplatin chemotherapy and standard radiation therapy together to patients with advanced oropharynx cancer. While the approach, called concurrent chemotherapy, causes more side effects than radiation treatment alone, patients receiving the concurrent therapy lived almost twice as long as the patients receiving radiation alone.

Using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Mortality Followback Survey, researchers provide the first conclusive evidence that men who smoke and drink heavily are at increased risk for nasopharyngeal cancer (cancer of the upper part of the throat).

Researchers report successful results of a new approach for head and neck cancer therapy – so-called "chemoradiation." This approach involves giving cisplatin chemotherapy and radiation together (concurrently), rather than one after the other (sequentially). The two-pronged approach helps prevent the spread of advanced squamous cell cancers of the head and neck to other parts of the body and causes greater tumor shrinkage, compared to radiation therapy alone.

Several years later, another trial finds that a similar approach – combining radiation with both cisplatin and fluorouracil chemotherapy – helps reduce the size of tumors enough so that patients can eventually undergo surgery to remove them. This approach is proven to significantly extend survival and reduce the risk of recurrence.

Researchers discover that giving high doses of methotrexate – a chemotherapy drug already used to treat leukemia – followed by "leucovorin rescue" can shrink the majority of head and neck tumors by as much as 50 to 75 percent. Such shrinkage makes it possible for more patients to have their tumors surgically removed, offering some a chance of cure.

Around this time, researchers explore the benefits of giving increasingly large doses of methotrexate for a range of cancers, finding that it is safe and effective as long as patients receive carefully timed supportive treatment with leucovorin, which helps protect the bone marrow and other healthy cells from the otherwise damaging effects of methotrexate.