Head & Neck / Thyroid Oncology Research Updates

In this phase 1 dose-expansion study, patients with advanced NSCLC, ccRCC, HNSCC, and CSCC who were anti‑PD‑1/PD‑L1 naïve or experienced received fianlimab 1600 mg plus cemiplimab 350 mg every 3 weeks for up to 24 months. Investigator‑assessed objective response rates varied by tumor type and prior PD‑1/PD‑L1 exposure (e.g., NSCLC‑naïve 27%, HNSCC‑naïve 33%, CSCC‑experienced 20%), and the most common treatment‑related adverse events across cohorts included fatigue, rash, pruritus, infusion‑related reaction, and adrenal insufficiency. The combination showed modest antitumor activity with an acceptable safety profile, particularly in treatment‑naïve patients, supporting further study.

In a real-world registry of 662 salivary gland cancer (SGC) patients (464 recurrent/metastatic; 381 with ≥1 molecular alteration), 54% received molecular-matched therapies (MMTs) with uptake highest in salivary duct carcinoma (SDC). In 110 SDC patients, first-line androgen receptor-targeted therapy had median PFS 5.3 months overall but was longer in HRAS-mutant versus HRAS-wild-type cases (19.1 vs 3.8 months; P = 0.007); first HER2-targeted therapy yielded median PFS 8.5 months with objective responses in 61% of assessable patients, and responses were also seen with targeted agents in BRAF V600E, NTRK-fusion, and high-TMB cases, indicating that comprehensive molecular testing can enable beneficial MMT in a subset.

This review finds that elevated circulating or intratumoral interleukin-8 (IL-8/CXCL8) is consistently associated with worse prognosis and diminished therapeutic benefit across major solid tumors (including gastrointestinal, genitourinary, lung, melanoma, breast, ovarian, and head and neck cancers). It highlights IL-8 as a prognostic and predictive biomarker of resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors and discusses strategies to target IL-8 alongside the need for standardized clinically actionable assays.