Physician Perspectives on the Management of Patients with Resected High-Risk Locally Advanced Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck Who Are Ineligible to Receive Cisplatin: A Podcast

Abstract

For the past two decades, cisplatin-based adjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) has remained the standard of care for patients with resected, locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (LA SCCHN) who are at high risk of disease recurrence. However, many patients are deemed ineligible for cisplatin-based CRT because of poor performance status, advanced age, poor renal function, or hearing loss. Outcomes with radiotherapy alone remain poor, so patients at high risk of disease recurrence who are ineligible to receive cisplatin represent a population with a significant unmet medical need. Although clinical guidelines and consensus documents have provided definitions for cisplatin ineligibility, there are still areas of debate, including thresholds for age and renal impairment as well as criteria for hearing loss. Treatment selection for patients with resected, high-risk LA SCCHN who are deemed ineligible to receive cisplatin is often based on clinical judgment, as treatment options are not clearly specified in international guidelines. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop alternative systemic treatments to be used in combination with radiotherapy. In this podcast, we share our clinical experience and provide our perspectives related to cisplatin ineligibility in patients with LA SCCHN, discuss the limited clinical evidence for adjuvant treatment of patients with resected, high-risk disease, and highlight ongoing clinical trials that have the potential to provide new treatment options in this setting.