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Session Information

2008 Annual Meeting

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David Brizel: Managing the Acute Side Effects of Concurrent Chemoradiation

Track : PRES

Program Code: PRES300E

SPEAKER:

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David Brizel, Professor, Duke University Medical Center

Dr. Drake Brizels clinical interests include head and neck cancer, non-melanoma skin cancer, targeted therapy, and tumor physiology. His research interests include the treatment of head and neck cancer has constituted both my principal clinical focus and the framework for my research efforts since my arrival at Duke in 1987. I led an in house randomized trial which was one of the first to demonstrate that concurrent chemoradiation was more efficacious than radiotherapy alone for locally advanced head and neck cancer. Reduction of treatment induced morbidity has been a major interest of mine. I served as the principal investigator of the pivotal randomized trial of amifostine in head and neck cancer. This study established proof of priniciple for the feasibility of pharmacologic radioprotection. The FDA approved this drug for protection against radiation induced xerostomia based on this trial. Presently, I am involved in preclinical and clinical studies that are evaluating the potential role of keratinocyte growth factor for protection against radiation induced mucositis and pneumonitis. One of these is a multi-center clinical trial that is evaluating the ability of keratinocyte growth factor to diminish the severity of mouth and throat soreness that develops during chemoradiation for head and neck cancer. I have served as co-Principal Investigator of a multinational randomized trial that tested the benefit of adding the hypoxic cell cytotoxin, tirapazamine, to concurrent chemoradiation in advanced head and neck cancer. I am conducting a unique clinical trial that combines both EGFR blockade (Tarceva) and VEGF blockade (Avastin) simultaneously with our standard regimen of hyperfractionated irradiation and concurrent cisplatin in advanced head and neck cancer.