Systemic treatment of metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck: proposal for management changes

Worldwide, head and neck carcinomas account for 5% of all malignancies. Two-thirds of patients relapse after initial multimodal therapy. Until early 2010, the median overall survival (OS) of metastatic patients was about 10 months.

New drugs have been incorporated in patient management, thus enabling an increase in OS. Several first and second line protocols are now available but the lack of direct comparison makes the choice difficult between them.

This work aims to define the comprehensive medical management of patients with relapsing head and neck carcinoma. In September 2020, the French head and neck groups GORTEC, Unicancer head and Neck group, GROCC and GETTEC decided to promote a one-day meeting to propose how to incorporate these new regimens in first and second line treatment for recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer (R/M SCCHNC). Twelve French medical oncologist involved in the management of R/M SCCHNC for more than 10 years examined the literature and proposed a simple and practical management based on five criteria: age, delay from last platinum injection, combined positive score expression level, FIT or UNFIT patient according to physician decision, fast response needed or not.