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Vitamin A Derivative Does Not Prevent Second Primary Tumors in Head and Neck Cancer Patients
Chemoprevention with low-dose 13-Cis retinoic acid (13-CRA; isotretinoin), a synthetic vitamin A derivative, did not lower the incidence of second primary tumors in patients with squamous cell cancer of the head and neck (SCCHN), according to long-term results of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (C0590) trial published in Cancer.
These data are the longest follow-up to date showing the effects of a retinoid in preventing second primary tumors in patients with SCCHN.
Aarti K. Bhatia, MD, MPH, of the department of medical oncology at Yale University School of Medicine and Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues, wrote that these results combined with those of a similar study at MD Anderson Cancer Center “conclusively rest this question of low-dose vitamin A analogs having a substantive chemopreventive role in patients with early-stage SCCHN.”
Source: Cancer Network