TY - JOUR T1 - Real-world Experience With Pembrolizumab for Advanced-stage Head and Neck Cancer Patients: A Retrospective, Multicenter Study JF - Anticancer Research JO - Anticancer Res SP - 3653 LP - 3664 DO - 10.21873/anticanres.15854 VL - 42 IS - 7 AU - TAKAFUMI NAKANO AU - RYUJI YASUMATSU AU - KAZUKI HASHIMOTO AU - RYOSUKE KUGA AU - TAKAHIRO HONGO AU - HIDETAKA YAMAMOTO AU - MIOKO MATSUO AU - TAKAHIRO WAKASAKI AU - RINA JIROMARU AU - TOMOMI MANAKO AU - SATOSHI TOH AU - MUNEYUKI MASUDA AU - MORIYASU YAMAUCHI AU - YUICHIRO KURATOMI AU - MASAHIKO TAURA AU - TORANOSHIN TAKEUCHI AU - TAKASHI NAKAGAWA Y1 - 2022/07/01 UR - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/42/7/3653.abstract N2 - Background/Aim: This study investigated the effectiveness of pembrolizumab with or without chemotherapy on advanced-stage head and neck cancer (HNC), including nasopharyngeal, sinonasal cavity and external auditory canal cancer, in a real-world setting. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively collected data from 97 HNC patients who were treated with pembrolizumab alone (n=60) or with chemotherapy (n=37), and we investigated the association between clinicopathological findings and treatment response or prognosis. Results: Patients treated with pembrolizumab and chemotherapy had a 1-year overall survival (OS) of 72.8%, objective response rate (ORR) of 48.6%, and serious (≥G3) adverse events (AEs) of 29.7%. Patients treated with pembrolizumab alone had a 1-year OS of 51.9%, ORR of 21.7%, and ≥G3 AEs of 6.7%. Both the ORR and disease control rate (DCR) in the pembrolizumab with chemotherapy group were significantly better than those in the pembrolizumab group (p=0.074 and p=0.00101, respectively). Among patients with distant metastasis, patients on pembrolizumab with chemotherapy achieved significantly better OS than pembrolizumab alone (p=0.0039). Among patients in the pembrolizumab group, both AE-positive and better performance status were associated with longer OS (p=0.011 and p=0.0037, respectively). Conclusion: Our real-world experience reinforces the durability and effectiveness of pembrolizumab for HNC patients. Additionally, our results suggest that pembrolizumab with chemotherapy might be recommended for patients with distant metastasis and no prior treatment. Further studies are needed to determine the optimal treatment strategy for HNC. ER -