Summery: "Head and neck cancer is one of the commonest cancers seen in India. Unfortunately, 85% of patients are seen in the advanced stage. Hence most of the patients fail. Palliative chemotherapy (chemotherapy which is given for symptomatic relief to have good quality of life. This chemotherapy cannot cure the cancer) is one of the main treatment options in this situation. There is an urgent need for having effective medical treatment options for such patients. Immunotherapy is a new treatment option in multiple cancers. However, the cost of these immunotherapy medications makes this option unfeasible for majority of the patients.
Metronomic chemotherapy has been developed as a cost-effective palliative chemotherapy option in head and neck cancers. There are multiple options of treatment in advanced cancer. However metronomic chemotherapy is oral, cheap and requires minimum resources. There are multiple options of treatment in second-line therapy. However, whether these options are better than the best supportive care in patients who cannot afford immunotherapy or have failed on it is unknown. Hence in this study, we would be comparing triple metronomic therapy or docetaxel versus best supportive care. "