New study highlights benefits of immunotherapy after surgery
A ground-breaking new study has shown for the first time the benefits of using immunotherapy to treat head and neck cancers at the time of diagnosis.
Previous research and clinical trials have led to the use of immunotherapy such as the drug nivolumab as a last-line of treatment when other options have been exhausted.
However the new research, by a French-based group of oncology experts, showed that using nivolumab immediately after surgery produced highly encouraging outcomes – prolonging life and improving the quality of life for patients.
In many cases, surgical operation is the first line of treatment for head and neck cancers to remove as much of the tumour as possible before radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Clinical trial
The latest study was a randomised clinical trial involving a total of 680 patients, some of whom received nivolumab along with radiotherapy followed by six cycles of the drug every four weeks.
The trial was organised by the group GORTEC, a French-based head and neck radiation oncology group.
“This is the first time in decades where a therapy demonstrated superiority over the standard of care cisplatin-radiotherapy in high-risk patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma,” said Prof Jean Bourhis, Principal Investigator of the study and Medical Director of the GORTEC group. Cisplatin is an established chemotherapy drug.
Dr Yoan Pointreau, President of the Gortec, the Dr Yun Gan Tao, president-elect, agreed, adding that the clinical trials have the potential to be practice-changing for high-risk patients.
The study follows earlier research led by colleagues from The Institute of Cancer Research which showed that nivolumab – an immune checkpoint inhibitor designed to uniquely harness the body’s own immune system to help restore anti-tumour immune response – almost tripled survival rates for those with advanced head and neck cancer.
The study also showed that nivolumab was far kinder for patients than the traditional approach. As a result of the work, the immunotherapy drug was made available on the NHS via the Cancer Drugs Fund in 2017 for patients whose head and neck cancer had returned or was getting worse within six months of receiving chemotherapy.
The new research demonstrates there is a powerful case to make nivolumab available far earlier in the treatment plan.
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