Head and neck cancer has constituted both my principal clinical and research foci since I came to Duke University in 1987. I designed and led a single institution phase 3 randomized clinical trial, initiated in 1989, which was one of the first in the world to demonstrate that radiotherapy and concurrent chemotherapy (CRT) was more efficacious than radiotherapy alone (RT) for treating locally advanced head and neck cancer. CRT has since been established as the non-surgical standard of care for locally advanced head and neck cancer. Reduction of treatment-induced toxicity has also been a major interest of mine because more intensive therapeutic regimens improve efficacy but also increase morbidity. I was the principal investigator of the pivotal multinational randomized trial of amifostine in head and neck cancer, which established proof of principle for pharmacologic radioprotection and led to FDA approval of this drug for protection against radiation induced xerostomia in the treatment of head and neck cancer in 1999. I have also investigated role of recombinant human keratinocyte growth factor KGF in the amelioration of mucositis in both preclinical and clinical settings.
