Docetaxel + Cetuximab + Concurrent Re-Irradiation (Intensity - Modulated Radiation Therapy, IMRT) for Patients With Locoregionally Recurrent Head and Neck Cancer

This is a study for patients who have head and neck cancer that has recurred in the body area where they previously received radiation, and for whom surgery is not planned. A widely accepted treatment option in this situation is chemotherapy alone. Another approach that has been used in clinical trials is to treat patients with a repeat course of radiation. In these studies, some patients received chemotherapy at the same time as the radiation. In this clinical study, we wish to treat with radiation plus two drugs during the course of reirradiation, Taxotere® (docetaxel) and Erbitux® (cetuximab). Docetaxel and cetuximab both are chemotherapy drugs which are administered by vein. Both drugs help radiation kill cancer cells. The radiation will be administered using a strategy called intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), which focuses the radiation beam on the tumor. Docetaxel and cetuximab are both approved for the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer. However, the combination of radiation + docetaxel + cetuximab for patients with recurrent head and neck cancer is considered to be a topic for clinical research. The purpose of this study is to determine the good and bad effects of treatment with radiation + docetaxel + cetuximab.