ESMO Expert Video Report on Immunotherapy for Head and Neck Cancer

Commenting on the findings from the KEYNOTE-048 trial and an academic trial comparing bio-radiotherapy with chemo-radiotherapy in oropharyngeal cancer presented at ESMO 2018 Congress, Dr. Marco Merlano says that we now have strong information with clinical implications in the field where research is moving very fast. Potentially practice changing results have been presented by KEYNOTE-048 investigators and first-line immunotherapy in HNSCC could become a standard of care in patients whose tumours express PD-L1 CPS over 20%. For low risk oropharyngeal cancer, considering the negative trial results, de-escalation of treatment should not be considered as an option according Dr. Merlano. ESMO 2018 Congress abstracts: LBA8: KEYNOTE-048: Phase 3 study of first-line pembrolizumab (P) for recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (R/M HNSCC), Barbara Burtness LBA9: Cetuximab versus cisplatin in patients with HPV-positive, low risk oropharyngeal cancer, receiving radical radiotherapy; Hisham Mehanna Produced by the European Society for Medical Oncology http://www.esmo.org