Oncotarget | Cetuximab is efficient and safe in patients with advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma: a retrospective, multicentre study

Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 4: Chemotherapy, alone or combined with radiotherapy, is commonly used mostly as palliative treatment; moreover, its poor safety profile limits its use most of the time, especially in elderly patients.

Fifty-eight patients received cetuximab as monotherapy.

The median PFS and OS were 9.7 months and 17.5 months, respectively.

Fifty-one patients experienced toxicity, and 67 adverse events related to cetuximab occurred.

Dr. Henri Montaudié from the Department of Dermatology, University Hospital of Nice, Nice, France said in their Oncotarget article, "Nonmelanoma skin cancers, 20% of which are cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas (cSCC), are the most common malignant tumor in western countries."

The treatment of unresectable or metastatic cSCC remains highly challenging.

Investigation of systemic therapies for advanced cSCC has been limited to a few prospective trials, and most of the time, retrospective data concern a highly selected population.

Figure 1: Kaplan-Meier curves for (A) overall survival (B) and progression-free survival.

Cetuximab has been tested in advanced cSCC and demonstrated a DCR of 69% at 6 weeks.

It is very likely that this immunotherapy will quickly become the first-line treatment for advanced cSCC, and it will certainly be interesting to combine it with cetuximab.

Therefore, in this retrospective, multicentre study, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of cetuximab as a single agent in patients with locally advanced or metastatic cSCC.

The Montaudié Research Team concluded in their Oncotarget paper that further clinical evaluations are needed to determine the role of cetuximab and immune checkpoint inhibitors in combination.

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Full text - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.27434

Correspondence to - Henri Montaudié - montaudie.h@chu-nice.fr

Keywords - cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, cetuximab, epidermal growth factor receptor