Head & Neck Cancers

Patients who used mobile and sensor technology to track their symptoms demonstrated reduced severity of their symptoms compared with patients who received standard care.

The FDA has approved combination therapy with dabrafenib and trametinib for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic BRAF V600E–positive anaplastic thyroid cancer.

Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, discusses the implications of the updated findings from the phase III CheckMate-141 trial in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Amy Duffield, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, member, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, discusses the implications for immunotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Suzanne L. Topalian, MD, director, Melanoma Program, professor of Surgery and Oncology, Johns Hopkins Medicine, discusses the treatment of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Robert Ferris, MD, PhD, vice chair for Clinical Operations, associate director for Translational Research, and co-leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, discusses the updated findings from the CheckMate-141 trial in head and neck cancer.

Treatment with nivolumab reduced the risk of death by 32% compared with investigator’s choice of therapy for patients with metastatic or recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Vivek Subbiah, MD, associate medical director, Clinical Center for Targeted Therapy, assistant professor, Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the safety and efficacy findings of BLU-667 in RET-altered solid tumors in an interview during the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting.

BLU-667, a next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor, appeared to be well-tolerated and had broad clinical benefit among patients with advanced, RET-altered solid tumors who progressed on prior therapies.

When investigators looked at roughly 150,000 cases of well-differentiated thyroid cancer using the SEER database of the National Cancer Institute, they knew that the use of radioactive iodine in conjunction with surgery and other treatments for thyroid cancer had increased dramatically over the years.

Michael Bouvet, MD, professor of surgery, University of California, San Diego, discusses risk factors for thyroid cancer.

Nivolumab induced an overall response rate of 20.5% in patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

Jared Weiss, MD, assistant professor, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the impact of immunotherapy in head and neck cancer.

A rolling new drug application has been completed for larotrectinib (LOXO-101) for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors harboring an NTRK gene fusion.

Loren K. Mell, MD, assistant professor, Department of Radiation Medicine and Applied Sciences, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, discusses individualizing treatments for patients with head and neck cancer.

Assuntina G. Sacco, MD, assistant professor of medicine, medical oncologist, UC San Diego Health, discusses ongoing trials investigating chemoradiation for patients with head and neck cancer.

The addition of weekly carboplatin following surgery and radiation therapy did not improve freedom from locoregional relapse in patients with high-risk cutaneous head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Gilberto Lopes Jr, MD, a medical director for International Programs at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, discusses the role of immunotherapy for patients with head and neck cancer.

The FDA has put a clinical hold on a phase I/II study of axalimogene filolisbac plus durvalumab (Imfinzi) for the treatment of patients with cervical cancer or head and neck cancer.

Kathryn A. Gold, MD, medical oncologist, associate professor of medicine, UC San Diego Heath, differentiates carcinogen-induced and virally associated head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Loren K. Mell, MD, assistant professor, Department of Radiation Medicine and Applied Sciences, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, discusses flaws in the current model of risk stratification for patients with head and neck cancer.

Larotrectinib (LOXO-101) induced durable responses in patients with TRK fusion–positive solid tumors, according to updated results for the novel pan-TRK inhibitor.

Joshua Bauml, MD, assistant professor, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, discusses HPV vaccination for patients with HPV-related head and neck cancer.

Joseph A. Califano, MD, professor of surgery, University of California, San Diego, discusses the role of surgery in head and neck cancer.

Development of effective therapies for metastatic head and neck cancer has been challenging, and progress has been slow.