PD-1 antibodies in head-and-neck cancer

Mortality in head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma has remained unaltered throughout the past and is predominantly associated with early onset of locoregional recurrence. Since the first publication of the beneficial use of checkpoint inhibitors in melanoma, patients have developed high hopes for the treatment of head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma. To date, several checkpoint inhibitors are being evaluated in clinical studies testing diverse drug and treatment combinations at different timepoints of the disease. The primary data and expertise that are available predominatly focus on targeting the programmed death 1 (PD-1)–programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) axis. 1 , 2 , 3 Ezra E W Cohen and colleagues 4 should be congratulated for their rigorous international study, published in The Lancet, which included almost 500 patients (412 men and 83 women; median age 60 years) with head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma from around the world.