Microsatellite instability associated with durable complete response to PD-L1 inhibitor in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Survival of recurrent or metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma patients (R/M-HNSCC) is still short. The median survival time of patients treated by platinum-based chemotherapy plus cetuximab is 10.1  months [1]. Recently, nivolumab, a PD-1 inhibitor, demonstrated a gain in overall survival in pretreated R/M-HNSCC in comparison to standard treatment [2]. Other checkpoint inhibitors targeting PD-1 (pembrolizumab) or PD-L1 (atezolizumab, durvalumab) also showed activity with objective response r ates ranging between 13 and 18% [3–5].

Source: Oral Oncology - April 6, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Magalie P. Tardy, Ilaria Di Mauro, Nathalie Ebran, Sadal Refae, Alexandre Bozec, Karen Benezery, Fr édéric Peyrade, Joel Guigay, Anne Sudaka-Bahadoran, Cécile Badoual, Florence Pedeutour, Esma Saada-Bouzid Tags: Letter to the editor Source Type: research