Phase II Randomized-registry Embedded Study of Lymphoscintigraphy for Oropharyngeal Neoplasms to Enable Risk-adapted Nodal Guidance for Robotic Surgery and/or Radiotherapy (LONE-RANGR2)

April 20, 2026 updated by: M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
To test a new radiation treatment design based on where your cancer is located. Most participants with oropharyngeal cancer are treated with radiation to both sides of the neck. However, for participants with oropharyngeal cancer on one side of the neck, receiving radiation to both sides of the neck may result in increased side effects and radiation exposure. This study is testing the safety and effectiveness of an approach that involves radiation to only one side of the neck in an effort to reduce the overall amount of radiation given and decrease the amount of side effects you may experience.

Study Overview

Detailed Description

Primary Objectives

To determine whether:

1. Omission of the contralateral neck cancer treatment is safe and toxicity-sparing for participants with well lateralized oropharyngeal HNSCC undergoing definitive or PORT radiation. This will be demonstrated by acceptably low contralateral neck failures (<15%)

Secondary Objectives

To determine:

  1. the relative difference in symptom burden, as measured by the MDASI_HN area-under-the-toxicity curve (AUC), for initial surgical and initial non-surgical therapy cohorts.
  2. Whether omission of the contralateral neck in radiotherapy planning as definitive of PORT treatment for well-lateralized oropharyngeal tumors will impact symptom burden as measured by MDASI AUC, Grade 2 or higher CTCAE v5.0 toxicity, swallow function, and/or feeding tube rates and dependency.
  3. Risk adapted therapy approaches lead to differences in distant-metastasis-free survival (DMFS), ipsilateral neck failure, primary site failure, and whether salvage therapy for contralateral neck failures is feasible and effective compared to historical controls.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

8

Phase

  • Phase 2

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Texas
      • Houston, Texas, United States, 77030
        • Md Anderson Cancer Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Newly diagnosed histopathologically-proven p16+ and/or HPV+ HNSCC of the base of tongue or faucial tonsil
  • cT1-2N0-1 per AJCC 8th edition staging.
  • Tumor does not cross midline, and must be >1cm from midline
  • For tonsil tumors, the primary may extend onto the palate or into the BOT but still be >1cm from midline
  • No evidence of contralateral neck disease on contrast MRI, CT Head/Neck, PET/CT, or lymphoscintigraphy nor retropharyngeal lymphadenopathy.
  • Able to undergo lymphoscintigraphy procedure
  • No contraindications for SLNM, adjuvant chemotherapy, RT nor adjuvant/definitive radiotherapy.
  • ECOG 0-1
  • Age >18 years
  • Ability to understand and the willingness to sign a written informed consent document.

Exclusion Criteria

  • Previous HN Cancer except small skin cancers.
  • Any retropharyngeal lymphadenopathy on either MRI, CT, or PET/CT
  • Contralateral neck nodal disease radiographically detected per routine diagnostic imaging or SPECT-CT.
  • Distant metastatic spread at the time of inclusion
  • Chemotherapy or surgery (for the present tumor), prior to inclusion.
  • Previous radiation treatment in the head and neck region, for any reason, except for cutaneous lesions that would not lead to overlap with definitive bilateral neck irradiation
  • Recurrent or second primary tumor in the head and neck region
  • Non-tongue base or non-faucial tonsil primaries
  • Prior history of regionally advanced or distant spread cancers
  • Pregnancy or no active contraception for pre-menopausal women
  • Known hypersensitivity to iodine or nanocolloid injection
  • Having any condition (physical, mental, sociological) that interferes with the informed consent procedure and follow-up schedules Has a diagnosis of active scleroderma, lupus, or other rheumatologic disease which in the opinion of the treating radiation oncologist precludes safe radiation therapy

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Arm 1- Ipsilateral
Participants with ipsilateral-only drainage (Arm 1- Ipsilateral) will be randomized to assign definitive ipsilateral RT (without concurrent chemotherapy) -vs- ipsilateral surgery (TORS/ND).
Given by I-RT

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Safety and adverse events (AEs)
Time Frame: Through study completion; an average of 1 year
Incidence of Adverse Events, Graded According to National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (NCI CTCAE) Version (v) 5.0
Through study completion; an average of 1 year

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: David Rosenthal, MD, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

April 19, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

December 9, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 9, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 4, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 4, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

December 12, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 21, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 20, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2022-0915
  • NCI-2023-10400 (Other Identifier: NCI-CTRP Clinical Registry)

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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