Surgery versus immunotherapy in locally advanced cutaneous carcinoma of the external ear: A multicenter study

Immunotherapy is a promising therapeutic strategy for cutaneous carcinoma in locally advanced and advanced stages. This study aims to compare the survival outcomes between patients treated with surgery and those treated with cemiplimab. Secondly, we evaluated how adjuvant treatment, tumor stage, and margins status may influence the oncological outcomes in the surgical group.

The study included 77 patients with locally advanced cutaneous carcinoma of the external ear treated between 2015 and 2023 with surgery, either followed or not by adjuvant therapy, or treated with cemiplimab.

Immunotherapy demonstrated a benefit in the disease-specific survival both at 24 months (HR = 0.09, p = 0.02) and at 60 months (HR = 0.11, p = 0.04) when compared to patients treated by surgery, with an estimated 5-year survival of 80 % and 55.9 %, respectively (log-rank = 0.03). Conversely, surgery showed a more favorable trend for disease-free survival than cemiplimab (HR 0.58, p = 0.08), with a median survival of 25.6 and 14.2 months. Stage IV, compared to stage III, tended to have a worse survival rate when stratified by treatment strategy. The addition of adjuvant therapy improved median disease-specific survival from 12 to 40 months for stage IV. On the other hand, adjuvant radiotherapy did not significantly affect outcomes when stratified by margin status, especially when resection margins were clear (p = 0.36).

Cutaneous carcinoma of the external ear represents a rare entity, affecting elderly patients and still associated with high complication rates. Emerging therapeutic strategies, which may serve as alternatives to surgery, offer a basis for future adjustments of treatment algorithms for these neoplasms.