Immunotherapy Trials in Head and Neck Cancer

Video

This video reviews ongoing trials testing immunotherapy for patients with head and neck cancer.

In this video, Barbara Burtness, MD, of the Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, discusses two ongoing trials testing immunotherapy in different settings for patients with head and neck cancer.

The first, a phase III trial, is testing standard of care vs pembrolizumab or chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab in patients with metastatic head and neck cancer.

The second trial is studying the efficacy of pembrolizumab prior to salvage surgery in patients whose disease has recurred after already having received definitive chemoradiation.

Recent Videos
The phase 3 NIVOSTOP trial evaluated an anti–PD-1 immunotherapy, nivolumab, in a patient population similar in the KEYNOTE-689 trial.
Opportunities to further reduce relapses include pembrolizumab-based combination therapy and evaluating the agent’s contribution before and after surgery.
For patients with locally advanced head and neck cancers, the current standard of care for curative therapy has a cure rate of less than 50%.
Treatment with toripalimab does not yield the same vascular toxicity seen with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma, according to Barbara Burtness, MD.
Overall survival also appears to improve with toripalimab compared with chemotherapy among patients with metastatic or advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
head and neck cancer
head and neck cancer
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