Pembrolizumab with or without chemotherapy in recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: hypothesis coming from the subgroup analysis

Pembrolizumab in head and neck cancer Harrington et al reported on the updated results of the phase III KEYNOTE-048 trial assessing pembrolizumab, an anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, with or without chemotherapy in recurrent/metastatic (RM) head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). A total of 882 recurrent/metastatic HNSCC patients were randomized 1:1:1 to pembrolizumab monotherapy (PM) (n = 301), pembrolizumab-chemotherapy (PC) (n = 281) or cetuximab-chemotherapy (n = 300). we congratulate the study authors on this important contribution to the clinical management of such a highly complex disease. The subgroup analysis data suggests that there could be a population of patients achieving greater benefit from ICI in RM-HNSCC, thus giving a boost to clinical and translational research.