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Adding low-cost oral metronomic tablets to standard paclitaxel-carboplatin doubled median survival from 5 to 10 months in a randomised trial run in Varanasi.
238 patients (119 per arm) with advanced unresectable head and neck cancer were randomised to paclitaxel-carboplatin plus oral metronomic chemotherapy or paclitaxel-carboplatin alone. Median overall survival was 10 months with the combination versus 5 months with chemotherapy alone (hazard ratio 0.54; 95% CI 0.41-0.72; P<0.001). Published in JCO Global Oncology in 2026 and framed by its authors as a trial addressing global cancer care equity, it extends the Tata Memorial metronomic programme to the Gangetic plain and to patients fit for platinum doublets.
Numbers are from the trial as recorded here; see the source links in the table below. This is orientation, not medical advice: ask your team how closely the trial population matches you.
Shares Tata Memorial Centre, Chemotherapy roadmap: mustard gas → curative combinations → the warhead inside smarter drugs, No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation.
Shares Tata Memorial Centre, Chemotherapy roadmap: mustard gas → curative combinations → the warhead inside smarter drugs, No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation.
Shares Chemotherapy roadmap: mustard gas → curative combinations → the warhead inside smarter drugs, Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation, Most of the world has almost no cancer care, Paclitaxel / nab-paclitaxel.
Shares Buccal mucosa and gingivobuccal cancer (oral cancer in India), Tata Memorial Centre, Recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, Chemotherapy roadmap: mustard gas → curative combinations → the warhead inside smarter drugs.
Shares Chemotherapy roadmap: mustard gas → curative combinations → the warhead inside smarter drugs, No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Most of the world has almost no cancer care, Paclitaxel / nab-paclitaxel.
Shares Recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, Paclitaxel / nab-paclitaxel, Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, Cytotoxic chemotherapy.
Shares Recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, Paclitaxel / nab-paclitaxel, Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, Cytotoxic chemotherapy.
Shares Chemotherapy roadmap: mustard gas → curative combinations → the warhead inside smarter drugs, No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.