Between March 1986 and October 1987, 73 patients with advanced squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck underwent initial chemotherapy before surgery and/or radiotherapy. Chemotherapy consisted of three courses of carboplatin/5-FU or cisplatin/5-FU. Pretreatment tumor states, remission rates and ages of the patients were comparable. Carboplatin as a modification of cisplatin showed significantly less gastrointestinal nerval and ototoxic side effects. After five years of followup, 30% of the patients treated with carboplatin and 33% of the cisplatinum group were alive and clinically free of disease. In contrast, 97% of all patients treated with sequential chemoradiotherapy have died. The data fails to support a "downstaging" of disease. These results document that the only prognostic factor for long-term survival is histologically complete resection of tumor. Further studies must compare the influence of prior chemotherapy and surgery, both followed by conventional fractionated radiotherapy in resectable tumors. Findings show that induction chemotherapy should not be used for unresectable tumors or for sequential chemo-radiotherapy. The use of carboplatin is preferred since oncological efficiency is comparable while side-effects are significantly less.