Section of Medical Oncology, 2(nd) Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Attikon University Hospital, 1(st) Rimini St, 12462 Haidari, Athens, Greece.
Maxillofacial Unit, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS, UK.
Cancer Treat Rev. 2020 Mar;84:101977. doi: 10.1016/j.ctrv.2020.101977. Epub 2020 Jan 24.
Preclinical data suggest that head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a profoundly immunosuppressive disease, characterized by abnormal secretion of proinflammatory cytokines and dysfunction of immune effector cells. Based on landmark phase III trials, two anti-Programmed Cell Death-1 (PD-1) antibodies, pembrolizumab and nivolumab have been approved for HNSCC by FDA and EMEA in the recurrent/metastatic setting; in addition, pembrolizumab has recently received FDA and EMEA approval as first line treatment. In clinical practice, only a minority of patients with HNSCC derive benefit from immunotherapy and the need for the discovery of novel biomarkers to optimize treatment strategies is becoming increasingly more relevant. Although currently only PD-L1 is widely used as a predictive biomarker for response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in HNSCC, there are many ongoing trials focusing on the identification of new biomarkers. This review will summarize current data on emerging biomarkers for response to immunotherapy in HNSCC.
临床前数据表明，头颈部鳞状细胞癌（HNSCC）是一种严重的免疫抑制性疾病，其特征是促炎细胞因子的异常分泌和免疫效应细胞的功能障碍。基于具有里程碑意义的 III 期临床试验，两种抗程序性细胞死亡蛋白-1（PD-1）抗体，pembrolizumab 和 nivolumab，已被 FDA 和 EMEA 批准用于复发/转移性 HNSCC ；此外，pembrolizumab 最近也获得了 FDA 和 EMEA 的批准，作为一线治疗药物。在临床实践中，只有少数 HNSCC 患者从免疫治疗中获益，因此需要发现新的生物标志物来优化治疗策略，这一点变得越来越重要。虽然目前只有 PD-L1 被广泛用作预测 HNSCC 对免疫检查点抑制剂反应的生物标志物，但仍有许多正在进行的临床试验专注于鉴定新的生物标志物。本文将综述 HNSCC 免疫治疗反应的新兴生物标志物的最新数据。
