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Locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (LA-HNSCC) often requires postoperative chemoradiation with high risk of toxicity. Disease-free survival (DFS) after 2 years is approximately 70%. Combining nivolumab (N), a PD-1-inhibitor and ipilimumab (I), a CTLA4- inhibitor, may improve DFS due to antitumor effects of immunotherapy. The IMSTAR-HN study compares neoadjuvant N and N ± I 6 months after adjuvant therapy versus standard therapy as first-line treatment for LA-HNSCC. Eligible patients have treatment-naive LA-HNSCC, Eastern cooperative oncology group performance score (PS) ≤1 and no distant metastasis. 276 patients will be randomized into two arms. Primary endpoint is DFS and secondary endpoint includes locoregional control (LRC) and overall survival (OS). This study is one of the first in HNSCCs implementing immunotherapy in first-line treatment in a curative setting. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT03700905 ( ClinicalTrials.gov )

For the production of composite components made of long-fibre reinforced thermoplastics (LFT) the economic compression moulding process is well established. However, the low temperature of the compression mould during processing leads to a significant increase in both the material viscosity and in the compression force in particular for thin-walled components. In addition, low surface qualities result which prevent the application of such components in visible areas. To overcome these disadvantages, a variothermal compression moulding process has been developed at the Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV) at RWTH Aachen University. With the variothermal mould technology a reduction of the viscosity of the moulding compound during processing is achieved. This results in a reduction of compression force by about 60 %. Additionally, moulding compounds with higher fibre contents (up to 60 % by weight) can be processed and the surface quality of LFT compression moulding components can be significantly increas...

The aim of the present study was to compare simultaneous integrated boost (SIB) plans using volumetric modulated arc therapy (RapidArc®; RA) or tomotherapy (TT) for bilateral (BL) and unilateral (UL) treatment in head-and-neck cancer (HNC) patients.Seventeen computed tomography scans (CTs) of 16 patients with SIB were replanned using TT and RA. We defined three groups: All, UL and BL, compared the dose distributions, homogeneity, conformity to planning target volume (PTV), organs at risk (OAR) and healthy tissue (HT) sparing. We evaluated a therapeutic-width index (TWI) based on PTV coverage and parotid gland (PG) sparing.PTV coverage for RA and TT was equivalent for all groups. UL irradiation resulted in similar doses to the HT for both techniques but TT achieved better sparing of spinal cord, larynx and contralateral PGs. TT provided better homogeneity. RA gave better conformity.Both methods achieved clinically acceptable results for UL and BL treatment, RA with better dose conformity to elective PTV, TT with better OAR sparing and homogeneity.