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Cancer of the upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) are frequently discovered at an advanced stage, making their locoregional control very difficult. Before the use of chemotherapy, the rate of localised control obtained with radiotherapy alone did not exceed 30 to 50% and the overall survival rate at five years was 20 to 30%. Since 2000, the standard treatment for locally advanced, non-operable UADT cancers has become the concomitant use of chemotherapy with platinum-based salts and radiotherapy, which has enabled improvements to be made in localised control and survival. The use of docetaxel in induction chemotherapy regimens has fuelled the debate on the indication of this treatment strategy. Numerous randomised trials have attempted to demonstrate the superiority of induction over standard treatment, without very much conclusive success. Indeed, the results of these trials need to be interpreted with caution due to varying methodological and therapeutic bias (non-optimal radiochemotherapy arm, inadequate statistical plan, etc.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]