Cisplatin and Radiation Therapy With or Without Erlotinib Hydrochloride in Treating Patients With Stage III or Stage IV Head and Neck Cancer

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. Compare the complete response rate in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer, treated with cisplatin, radiotherapy and erlotinib (erlotinib hydrochloride) versus cisplatin and radiotherapy alone. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. Evaluate whether the addition of erlotinib increases the acute and long term toxicities of cisplatin and radiotherapy, in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer. II. Compare the disease-free and overall survivals of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer treated with cisplatin and radiotherapy, with and without erlotinib. III. Evaluate whether the symptomatic improvement observed in the first week of erlotinib alone predicts for complete response and long term disease control. IV. Correlate epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), p16 and excision repair cross-complementing 1 (ERCC-1) expression with response outcome to therapy with cisplatin and radiation with and without erlotinib. V. Identify other molecular correlates that may be relevant in the pathogenesis of squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (SCCHN) or response to therapy. OUTLINE: Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. ARM I: Patients receive cisplatin intravenously (IV) on days 1, 22, and 43 and undergo 3-dimensional conformal or intensity modulated radiotherapy once daily, 5 days per week, on days 1-47. Patients also receive erlotinib hydrochloride orally (PO) once daily (QD) on days -7 to 47. ARM II: Patients receive cisplatin and undergo radiotherapy as in Arm I. Within 10-14 weeks after completion of study treatment, patients with N2 or N3 disease at the time of screening undergo a neck dissection. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up periodically for 5 years.