OBJECTIVES: To derive Australian utility values for different health states associated with a new treatment regimen used as induction chemotherapy before concurrent chemoradiation for patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN).METHODS: As head and neck cancer includes over 30 specific sites of cancer, for simplicity, the study focused on oropharyngeal cancer. This reduced the need to present multiple attributes in each scenario, and reduced complexity of the study with the aim of preventing cognitive overload among respondents. 86 participants were recruited by an independent research company. They ranged from 18–77 years (mean age 44 years). Participants were presented information about locally advanced SCCHN, as well as cancer of the oropharynx and its treatment. Participants were then presented with 10 health states describing locally advanced cancer of the oropharynx and its chemotherapy treatment and were asked to value these using a standard gamble technique. RESULTS: The results showed that participants successfully valued the health states, applying values derived for the main four health states (baseline, responding, non-responding and disease progression) and their varying toxicity levels in a logical sequence. Utility values ranged from 0.67 (SD= 0.24) for treatment response, 0.65 (SD=0.24) at baseline, 0.60 (SD=0.27) for non-response, and 0.48 (SD = 0.23) for a patient experiencing disease progression. When mild, moderate and severe toxicities were added, face validity of results showed the standard gamble instrument was sensitive to these differences.CONCLUSIONS: Within the broad term ‘head and neck cancer’, tumours are biologically similar as are some of the associated symptoms of disease. As such, it could be expected that the same incremental differences in utilities could be derived for health state scenarios using the same treatment for SCCHN but arising in alternate tumour sites such as the hypopharynx, oral cavity or larynx.