Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 2299: Prognostic Biomarkers of Salvage Chemotherapy Following Nivolumab Treatment for Recurrent and/or Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 2299: Prognostic Biomarkers of Salvage Chemotherapy Following Nivolumab Treatment for Recurrent and/or Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cancers doi: 10.3390/cancers12082299 Authors: Wakasaki Yasumatsu Masuda Takeuchi Manako Matsuo Jiromaru Uchi Komune Noda Nakagawa Recent studies have suggested the benefit of salvage chemotherapy (SCT) after immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment for recurrent and metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (R/M HNSCC). We retrospectively examined the outcome of SCT and the usefulness of the serum C-reactive protein level (CRP) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) as prognostic biomarkers. Thirty-nine patients with R/M HNSCC were enrolled in this study. Twenty-five patients (64.1%) received combination chemotherapy of weekly paclitaxel and cetuximab (PC) as SCT, and 14 patients (35.9%) received S1, an oral fluoropyrimidine. In all patients, the response rate, disease control rate, median progression-free survival (PFS), and median overall survival (OS) were 45.2%, 85.7%, 6.5 months, and 13.5 months, respectively. No chemotherapy-related deaths were observed. These PC groups had low CRP (<1.2 mg/dL) or low NLR (<7.0) values at the time of SCT induction, which was significantly associated with an improved OS (p = 0.0440, p = 0.0354). A multivariate analysis also showed that a lower CRP value was significantly associated with a bett...
Source: Cancers - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research