The object of this study was to analyse our experience with the effects of concurrent chemoradiotherapy for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, the treatment results of this therapeutic strategy and a salvage treatment for recurrent oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Seventy-five patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma were treated with chemoradiotherapy. The study included twenty-five of these patients who had recurrent oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma after chemoradiotherapy

The three-year actuarial survival rates for 75 patients by disease stage were as follows: stage II, 100 per cent; stage III, 71.1 per cent; stage IV, 51.7 per cent and overall, 58.2 per cent. The mean time of detection of recurrence was 6.2 months. The total salvage rates of recurrence were 21 per cent. The one and three-year tumour-free actuarial survival rates of those patients who received salvage treatment were 83 and 33 per cent.

Surgical salvage was only feasible for early recurrent tumour. Close follow-up surveillance of early recurrence is essential after primary treatment of patients with chemoradiotherapy.