Head & Neck Cancers

Rozita Yarmand, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Endocrine Neoplasia and Hormonal Disorders-Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses unmet needs in medullary thyroid cancer.

Ezra Cohen, MD, associate director, Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, discusses the treatment era before immunotherapy in head and neck cancer.

In an effort to build more sophisticated protocols that keep QoL and cost questions at the forefront, Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care and Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Institute for Onco-Physics created a mathematical model to identify the optimal candidates for proton therapy, the most modern form of radiation therapy for patients with head and neck cancers.

A new staging system for head and neck cancers recognizes that patients with oropharyngeal malignancies associated with the human papillomavirus often have an excellent prognosis, but efforts to deintensify therapy for this population based on a fresh understanding of favorable risk factors may be premature.

Barbara Burtness, MD, professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) Disease Aligned Research Team Leader, Head and Neck Cancers Program co-director, Developmental Therapeutics Research Program of Yale Cancer Center, discusses the use of biomarkers in metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Fee-for-service tends to result in a surplus of care and unnecessary medical expense, but it probably won’t disappear from the landscape soon.

Hisham Mehanna, PhD, BMedSc, MBChB, FRCS, chair, Head and Neck Surgery, director, Institute of Head and Neck Studies and Education at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham, discusses the design of the De-ESCALaTE trial in patients with HPV-positive head and neck cancer.

Ezra Cohen, MD, associate director, Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, discusses the value of progression-free survival (PFS) as an endpoint in head and neck cancer trials.

Barbara Burtness, MD, professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology); Disease Aligned Research Team Leader, Head and Neck Cancers Program; co-director, Developmental Therapeutics Research Program; of Yale Cancer Center, discusses the promise of frontline pembrolizumab in the treatment of patients with metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has adopted a positive opinion for a new extended dosing schedule for pembrolizumab for all of the PD-1 inhibitor’s monotherapy indications in the European Union.

Hisham Mehanna, PhD, BMedSc, MBChB, FRCS, chair, Head and Neck Surgery director, Institute of Head and Neck Studies and Education at the School of Cancer Studies, University of Birmingham, discusses goals of the updated staging system in HPV-positive head and neck cancer.

Ezra Cohen, MD, associate director, Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, discusses remaining questions regarding the use of immunotherapy in head and neck cancer that still need to be addressed.

A recently launched clinical trial aims to improve outcomes and quality of life for patients with nasal and paranasal squamous cell carcinoma (NPNSCC), a rare type of head and neck cancer that is challenging to treat and carries significant morbidity.

The FDA has granted a priority review designation to a supplemental biologics license application for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) alone or in combination with platinum and 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Thanks to technological advances, the past several decades have witnessed a blossoming appreciation of the varied composition of these microbial communities, their complex and dynamic relationship with the host, and the way they affect health and disease.

Jed A. Katzel, MD, Hematology, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, discusses differences in treatment decisions between men and women with head and neck cancer.

Hisham Mehanna, PhD, BMedSc, MBChB, FRCS, chair, Head and Neck Surgery director, Institute of Head and Neck Studies and Education at the School of Cancer Studies, University of Birmingham, discusses the implications of the updated staging system for patients with HPV-positive head and neck cancer.

Ezra Cohen, MD, associate director, Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, discusses the promise of immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer.

An ongoing randomized phase III study will compare the safety and efficacy of atezolizumab with placebo as adjuvant therapy after definitive local therapy in patients with high-risk, locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

The PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab in combination with radiotherapy, cyclophosphamide, and GM-CSF did not demonstrate efficacy superior to other PD-1 inhibitor monotherapies in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Nivolumab demonstrated durable response and overall survival rates in a real-world analysis of patients with platinum-refractory, recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.