Articles related to HEAD & NECK CANCER (HNC)

Dr. Vanita Noronha from the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai emphasizes the need for rethinking drug dosing approaches for modern therapies like nivolumab, an immunotherapy. Ongoing and planned trials in India are exploring cost-effective alternative dosing regimens due to the prohibitive cost of standard-dose therapies. Dr. Vanita Noronha from the Tata Memorial Centre highlighted the role of factors such as pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, receptor affinity, and drug elimination in determining drug dosing during a Q&A session with Clinical Advances in Hematology & Oncology. The traditional dosing approach does not apply to modern therapies like nivolumab, an immunotherapy that binds to the PD-1 protein. According to Dr. Noronha, the drug reaches receptor saturation at a low dose, and hence increasing dosage does not increase receptor binding. For nivolumab to be effective, 70-75% of the PD-1 receptor needs to be occupied, which occurs at a dose of 0.3 mg/kg, only a tenth of the usually administered dose of 3 mg/kg. Dr. Noronha further described a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2023 on low-dose nivolumab in head and neck cancer. The study, conducted with Indian patients who cannot afford standard dosing, used a regimen of oral metronomic chemotherapy along with […]

The Cleveland Clinic estimates that 20% of people will get an oral ulcer at some point. The University of Tennessee’s Dr. Amit Correa, a fellow in hematology and oncology, goes over what to look for, potential causes, how to evaluate a patient with an oral ulcer, what the physical examination entails, other common conditions in the oral cavity that a clinician should be aware of, treatment options, and more in this podcast.

Discovery of erythroplakia in a patient’s mouth is more serious than finding leukoplakia. Approximately half of erythroplakic lesions represent invasive carcinomas. Review the differential diagnosis and management in this review article.

A compilation of each lymph node level’s radiologically practical bounds, which include: Submental and submandibular at Level I Level II: Deep cervical (internal jugular) chain Level III: deep cervical (internal jugular) chain Lower internal jugular (deep cervical) chain, level IV Posterior triangle at level V Central (anterior) compartment at level VI

According to a study presented at the 2022 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, 27% of 159 patients in the sample who received inpatient immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment passed away while still in the hospital, with the median overall survival for the entire group being 47 days. Thoracic or head and neck cancers (27%) were the most prevalent, with gastrointestinal cancers (20%), hematologic malignancies (18%), genitourinary cancers (17%), and melanoma (11%) rounding out the rest.

First-line pembrolizumab and pembrolizumab-chemotherapy continued to outperform cetuximab-chemotherapy in recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma after a 4-year follow-up. Following pembrolizumab-based therapy, patients responded well to subsequent treatment.